102 PCWorld MAY 2020FEATURE AMD RYZEN 4000 OR INTEL COMET LAKE H LAPTOP
some GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q chips.
Max-Q itself is evolving. While in the past
it meant giving up a lot of performance,
memory and power optimizations mean
you’re no longer robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Add up Ryzen 4000, 10th-gen Comet
Lake H, and GeForce RTX Super, and we can
say if you want to buy a new gaming laptop,
waiting will be worth it.
The only fly in the ointment is our current
world events. Laptops are rolling out far
slower than expected. If you want the perfect
laptop with X feature, combined with Y
screen, and Z CPU, then you might be waiting
longer than usual.
While we’re leaning toward ‘wait’ for
gamers, there is a strong counter-argumentto be made. Something
new and hot doesn’t
immediately make the
previous generation truly
“obsolete.” The 9th-gen
Intel Core H CPU has
proven itself in many
gaming laptops,
including the recently
reviewed HP Pavilion
Gaming Laptop 15t (go.
pcworld.com/pv15;
$1,440 on HP.com [go.
pcworld.com/bypv]) and
Dell G7 15 7590 (go.
pcworld.com/dlg7;
$1,400 from Dell.com
[go.pcworld.com/byg7]). Both of these
older models are already pretty affordable,
and you’ll likely see price cuts to move
them before the new models arrive—so you
could snag a good deal.DON’T WAIT: IF YOU USE
YOUR L APTOP FOR
CONTENT CREATION
We’re leaning slightly in the “don’t wait”
direction for users buying laptops for content
creation tasks, such as editing video. We
know you need the same powerful GPU and
powerful CPU, plus lots of RAM and storage,
that a gaming laptop needs. With AMD, Intel,
and Nvidia all dropping new wares, you
could wait.The 9th-gen Intel Core H CPU has proven itself in many gaming laptops,
including HP’s Pavilion Gaming Laptop 15t.