When did we decide to accept laptop overheating?

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Key findings

  • Current gaming laptops are hot and reach high temperatures.
  • Slim aluminum gaming laptops look good but have serious temperature problems.
  • Mid-range gaming laptops offer decent performance without overheating like high-end models.



The team here at XDA has been testing a wide range of the best gaming laptops and one trend is taking hold. No, it's not high-resolution displays with high refresh rates, desktop processors, or even mechanical key switches. These are all good trends and we want to see them continue. I'm talking about high temperatures while gaming or doing anything other than browsing the web. The latest gaming laptops feature powerful CPUs that crank up to high frequencies, as well as discrete graphics chips that aren't quite desktop replacements, but not far off. However, they also have thin and sleek designs that make it very difficult to keep heat buildup under control. Something has to change because running CPUs at 100°C long-term is not a good idea for their health.


Current gaming laptops are popular

Literally… well, they look good too

The industry trend toward sleek, aluminum gaming laptops has brought some admittedly gorgeous machines to market, but they all hide a major problem beneath their shiny exterior. The team here at XDA has been looking at dozens of new gaming laptops lately. In every gaming laptop review that mentions heat generation, the prevailing theme is that you can expect higher temperatures with these components in this form factor. I can't even argue with that assessment, because it's basic physics: heat has to go somewhere, and the CPUs and GPUs in gaming laptops are getting more and more powerful. I've regularly seen laptop CPUs spike to 100°C under benchmarks and gaming loads and start throttling while screaming fans desperately try to bring temperatures down.


This isn't even a new problem. We had an extreme example of this nearly a decade ago when Asus released the ROG GX700, a 17-inch gaming laptop with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 inside, cooled by an external water cooler. The following year, the ROG GX800 increased the screen size but also added a second GTX980 with an even more complex water cooling system to keep heat under control. These massive gaming laptops came in a suitcase like you'd take with you on a trip, weighing nearly 25 pounds with the laptop, cooling station, and 330W power adapter to run it all.


The GTX 980 in these laptops had twice the VRAM of the desktop version, so at 8GB it could actually outperform a similarly equipped desktop PC. The water cooling system meant a 10°C reduction in CPU temperature and up to 20°C in GPU temperature, so this thing could cook without cooking itself. However, no one should be expected to lug around a suitcase full of cooling equipment to keep their gaming laptop cool.

And it's not just gaming laptops

Laptops reaching higher temperatures than their desktop counterparts have been an issue for as long as I've been using them. Even some of the best laptops get warm in use, as the ultra-thin form factors of modern machines leave little room for thermal considerations. The best-behaved laptops are those with Arm-based processors, like recent MacBooks and any with the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite, but that's perhaps not surprising, as they're designed for mobile use.


Gaming laptops can get extremely hot during long gaming sessions. If you're looking for a cooling pad, the Thermaltake Massive 20 is a great option, featuring a 200mm fan, RGB lighting, and a size for laptops up to 19 inches.

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It doesn't have to be that way

Even mid-range hardware is sufficient for gaming

Flagship gaming laptops regularly overheat and throttle performance, so what about the mid-range models? We tested the Legion Pro 5 (AMD) and 5i (Intel) last year, with the AMD version using the Ryzen 7 7745HX and the Intel version using the Intel Core i7-13700HX. Both laptops also have 140W Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 laptop GPUs, so those are respectable specs, and neither laptop throttled performance under load. They couldn't match the performance of the higher-end i9s and RTX 4080s, but they're not supposed to. The most important thing here is that they don't have any thermal issues that would cause performance to degrade. Not every flagship gaming laptop I've used can say that.


The interesting thing about the popularity of PC gaming handhelds with significantly weaker CPUs and GPUs is that gamers are willing to compromise when it suits them. The mid-range Legion Pro 5 model costs around $1,400 as tested, which is amazing considering the gaming performance it can offer. In contrast, even the cheapest RTX 4090-powered gaming laptop on our list costs well over $3,000 and will likely suffer from the same thermal issues I noted earlier.

I will always advocate buying sensible gaming laptops that offer a carefully considered selection of components for consistent performance. If the display is 1080p or 1440p, you don't need a powerful GPU, but you can buy one if you want the FPS boost. A mid-range CPU is better overall and offers better thermal performance, and the days of weak dual-core CPUs with Intel i5 or i7 branding are over.


You don't need an i9 processor to edit documents

The runaway success of laptops powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite shows that you don't need a hot CPU to have enough power to run your apps. Now an even less powerful version, the Snapdragon X Plus, is coming to challenge every other CPU in the hotly contested low-to-mid price bracket of around $600. Qualcomm claims it delivers 61% more power than the competition in the form of an Intel Core Ultra 7 155U. That's one of the more common ultrabook CPUs, and it's about to be bombarded by a slew of Arm-based laptops promising significantly better battery life. Qualcomm's chips also run cooler, so they don't need noisy fans or complex heatpipe arrangements to stay cool.


Something has to change because it is not advisable to keep the CPU running at 100 °C all the time

There will always be a place for halo products with the absolute best components as a testament to what PC makers can produce. I'm not arguing that, but the thermal issues of many high-end laptops can't be overlooked. Your laptop's CPU shouldn't be hitting thermal limits and throttling on a regular basis, and 100°C isn't a healthy temperature for any computing device. Mid-range gaming laptops are better suited to the amounts of heat their components can generate and offer the user better value overall. Meanwhile, low-powered devices like Chromebooks have shown that we don't need powerful laptops to edit documents, although the extra power of some laptop chips can improve some tasks.


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