Help Me, Laptop! Can a $500 Notebook Run Fortnite?

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Are you ready to jump onto the Fortnite bandwagon but not entirely sure about what laptop to buy?

Well, this week on the Tom's Guide forums, one user asked for help in finding the best Fortnite laptop for a reasonable price.

seiseimaeda585 writes, "[What] laptops around $500 are good for [running] Fortnite at around 60 [frames per second on] Medium settings?"

I'm sorry, seiseimaeda585, but due to how taxing Fortnite is, there's no way we could find something with your exact specifications for that price. Don't worry, though — we have some recommendations that'll help you decide what to do next.

Generally, the minimum requirements for Fortnite are a 2.4-GHz Intel Core i3 processor, 4GB of RAM and an Intel HD 4000 graphics card. "Minimum" guarantees that it will run, but not necessarily well. The recommended specs are a 2.8-GHz Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and an Nvidia GTX 660 or AMD Radeon HD 7870 equivalent DX11 GPU (2GB of VRAM).

Despite the recommended specs, to play Fortnite at 60 fps on Medium settings at 1080p, you need at least an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 with 2GB of VRAM, which is where the trouble with the pricing comes in.

Recommendations

If you're tied to a $500 price range, you can get the Asus VivoBook F510UA for $509 on Amazon right now. (However, that might change soon). It's packed with an Intel Core i5-8250U processor, 8GB RAM, a 1TB HDD and an Intel UHD 620 graphics card. When I tested Fortnite on an Intel UHD 620, it averaged 56 fps on Low (640 x 360). In addition to looking gross, the game stuttered often, which was problematic when encountering players.

If you're willing to spare an extra couple hundred dollars, take a look at the Acer Nitro 5, which sells for $729 and offers a 2.3-GHz Intel Core i5-8300H processor, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and a GTX 1050 Ti GPU with 4GB of VRAM. These specs are a little beefier than you might need, but it's quite a value, especially considering it's not very far from your asking price.

MORE: Best Laptops Under $500

To play comfortably, though, we recommend getting something a little pricier, like the Lenovo Legion Y520, which costs $899 when configured with an Intel Core i5-7300HQ processor, 8GB of RAM, a 1TB HDD and an Nvidia GTX 1060 GPU with 3GB of VRAM. It's much more expensive, but you'd be able to run Fortnite on High and Epic settings at 60 fps.

Ultimately, seiseimaeda585, we couldn't meet your exact request, but we hope that these recommendations are helpful in your quest to earn that Victory Royale.

Rami Tabari
Rami Tabari
Editor

Rami Tabari is an Editor for Laptop Mag. He reviews every shape and form of a laptop as well as all sorts of cool tech. You can find him sitting at his desk surrounded by a hoarder's dream of laptops, and when he navigates his way out to civilization, you can catch him watching really bad anime or playing some kind of painfully difficult game. He’s the best at every game and he just doesn’t lose. That’s why you’ll occasionally catch his byline attached to the latest Souls-like challenge.