but its still no match to Strix Halo, let alone RTX 50 series dedicated GPUs.
Meanwhile its CPU increase seems really modest by comparison, certainly not worth waiting over current 2025 laptops.
And its battery life is still up in the air.
So yea as the title asks, are there any sort of person who could justify waiting for Intel Panther Lake laptops, over just buying current discounted 2025 laptops?
Panther lake is a chip for low power users and buisness people. Not for gamers or performance hungry users. If you want a laptop to have good enough gpu capability to run medium requiring games or older AAA games but also give good battery life while using it for light tasks then this panther lake chip is better fit than the lunar lake and arrow lake for you.
For game development, you should either be looking at building a high end AM5 desktop (and soon before prices continue to go even higher) with a nice dGPU, or an Intel or AMD laptop with a dGPU, preferably with 12 GB of vRAM or more. Even Intel’s current, Lunar Lake, Arrow Lake, AMD’s Strix Point RDNA 3 .5iGPU, or likely even upcoming Panther Lake won’t be anything close to a true modern dGPU for gaming.
Here are a few more points:
If you want a dGPU for a laptop, Nvidia is your only option right now. If you have the money, absolutely avoid the RTX 5070 GPU and below because of the vRAM. Espeically for Unreal Engine 5 game development.
Make sure to get at least 32 GB of RAM unless you can upgrade the RAM on the laptop later. In that case, you still might want to get 32 GB now given the RAM pricing and shortage right now continuing to get worse every week.
Avoid the Acer Predator Triton 14, as that has a weaker Intel Lunar Lake CPU (which is meant for thin and light laptops, not gaming laptops), is limited to 32 GB of on-package RAM, and a low performing GPU that not only is limited to the 8 GB of vRAM issue I mentioned earlier, but also is not given full wattage, not even close.
By that token, avoid the XPS/Premium series too for the same reasons (apart from the Lunar Lake CPU), like weak CPU and GPU performance for the size of the laptops and their extremely high price, as well as the poor port selection (basically just three Thunderbolt 4 ports, one which is used to charge the laptop, so two in reality, and a headphone jack), no MUX switch (not a massive deal for a creator laptop, which this is sort of positioned as, but badly, but for a gaming, it is very bad not to have one, even with the CA:SO update to Windows), a basically unusable keyboard (for software and video game development, especially with the oddly sized keys and touch bar function row that includes the escape and delete keys, though the touchpad might not be a huge deal for game development as I’m going to assume every game developer and PC gamer has a mouse, but in my experience it is not great on the current models with the borderless touchpad), and the fact that there are better laptops for game development.
For a recommendation, I would probably lean towards the Lenovo Legion 9i, the Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 or 18, or the Eluktronics Hydroc 16 (US) / XMG Neo 16 (UK & EU) for game development, as they all have truly high-end GPU options, great CPU performance, and excellent keyboards and port selections (though the Asus Strix Scar laptops have all of their ports on the sides, especially the left side, so if you are a left handed mouse user, R.I.P.), and great screens, especially the Strix Scars and Hydroc 16 which both have Mini-LED HDR screens with high refresh rates, good color gamuts, and 2560x1600 resolutions (though do note that the Hydroc 16 can only be gotten with that screen from the Eluktronics website; Amazon only has the IPS screen, which has the same resolution and refresh rate but no HDR support because no local dimming and lower brightness). I have the current model with the top tier 5090 and apart from the external Liquid Cooling (LPP) that I never use, it’s awesome. Several other Just Josh team members currently use the Strix Scar laptops and enjoy them for gaming.
TL;DR, go for the Lenovo Legion 9i, Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 or 18, or the Eluktronics Hydroc 16 if you want a good gaming laptop that can also do game development or even content creation. Avoid iGPUs for high-end game development, period. They just aren’t powerful enough. And yes, that includes AMD’s Strix Halo APUs imo.
As if I’m even close to the budget of those flagship laptops
my budget only tops out at 20 million Rupiah/$1200, if I want 32GB RAM out of the box my best picks are either:
Asus TUF A14 (Ryzen 7 260/RTX 5050)
Lenovo LOQ 15 (Ryzen 5 220/RTX 5050, only FHD screen)
Acer Nitro V 16S (Ryzen 5 240/RTX 5050)
otherwise I’d have to settle for used, im starting to see used 2023 Zephyrus G16 (RTX 4070) and 2022 Flow X16 (RTX 3070Ti) around $1200. But good luck convincing my parents to let me get a used laptop.
Tho
since so many modern games are infamous for being unoptimized, since as you said they’re usually developed on high end desktops, and then the devs need to actively try to find lower spec laptop/PC later on to playtest & optimize for them;
I wonder if there’s a merit to deliberately developing the game using lower spec hardware (ie a 5050/5060, or even Strix Halo since I heard rumors that the TUF A14’s getting one next year)
So I’d be forced to develop my game with a lower target spec in mind, and thus my game will end up inherently more optimized
esp since I’m absolutely not trying to make a AAA graphics game here, I’m developing the game for Android first and formost
Oh, you’re developing for Android!? Why didn’t you just say so!
In that case, I think the LOQ or Asus TUF A14 should be good, as long as you get a screen that has around 100% sRGB coverage. For the LOQ, I would try to get a Ryzen 7 CPU; it can make a difference at 1920x1080/1200, where CPU limits are more likely.
unfortunately the LOQ in my country only comes with either the Ryzen 5 220 or the even older Intel 13450HX; and its screen is really dim at 300 nits
At least the TUF A14’s screen has higher resolution and is brighter at 500 nits, even if its also just an IPS
And while the TUF A14 is the undisputed the nicest laptop in its price range because of the surprising amounts of parts it shares with Asus’s flagship laptops, it uses the ROG Flow X13’s keyboard and the Zephyrus G14’s trackpad); its a 14 inch screen which might be a bit small for productivity
Tho actually, in my budget there is a laptop that has a dGPU and also a 1800p OLED with perfect 100% sRGB & DCI-P3 coverage, the 2024 Acer Swift X…
but that laptop only has 1 fan for its 60W RTX 4060
And I’m also lowkey waiting for the new Swift X, bc that one got a haptic trackpad & 14.5 inch touchscreen, very handy to test out touch controls; tho who knows when it’ll even come out
