Gaming Laptop Glossary

Every term buyers actually meet, explained in one or two sentences — no jargon walls.

DLSS

NVIDIA's Deep Learning Super Sampling — AI upscaling that boosts frame rates. DLSS 4 adds multi frame generation on RTX 50-series GPUs.

AI-generated frames inserted between rendered frames to raise FPS. Increases smoothness; adds a little input latency.

A multiplexer that lets the dedicated GPU talk directly to the display, bypassing integrated graphics for higher FPS.

Total Graphics Power — the wattage budget of the laptop GPU. A higher-TGP RTX 5070 can beat a lower-TGP RTX 5070 Ti.

Backlit LCD using thousands of tiny LEDs for deep blacks and high brightness — between IPS and OLED.

Self-emissive display tech with perfect blacks and instant response — superb for gaming, with some burn-in risk on static content.

Low-power RAM soldered to the motherboard — fast and efficient, but not upgradeable after purchase.

Removable RAM modules — the upgradeable kind. Prefer these if you plan to add memory later.

SSD interface generations. Gen 5 is roughly twice as fast as Gen 4 on paper; for game load times the difference is small.

Adaptive sync matching display refresh to GPU output, removing screen tearing.

Intel's high-speed port standard — useful for docks and eGPUs. Not all gaming laptops include it.

Reducing CPU/GPU voltage to cut heat and noise with minimal performance loss. Results vary by chip.

External graphics card in a desktop enclosure, connected via Thunderbolt or OCuLink.

Video memory on the graphics card. 8GB is the 2026 minimum for demanding games; 12–16GB is safer at high settings.

Suffixes: HX = desktop-class power, H = balanced performance, U = efficiency for thin-and-light.

Display brightness unit. 300 nits is dim indoors-only; 500+ nits works near windows; 1000+ enables true HDR.

Wide colour gamut for creators. 100% DCI-P3 matters for photo/video work; for gaming, sRGB coverage matters more.