This Dell G15 Ryzen Edition laptop for under $700 is the perfect deal for the student gamer

This weekend, Dell has a big sale on several gaming laptops and desktops. One deal that stood out to us was a G15 Ryzen Edition gaming laptop for only $681. This model of the G15 Ryzen usually sells for $1,019, but thanks to an instant discount and coupon code  SAVE17, you can save over $300 at checkout. 

This 15-inch gaming laptop is powered by an AMD Ryzen 5 5600H mobile CPU, 8GB of DDR4 RAM, and an RTX 3050. This GPU nearly matches the GTX 1660 Ti in terms of power, and it also takes advantage of the RTX 30-series DLSS and ray tracing support. The Ryzen 5000 H-series CPU should let you perform most productivity tasks from school or work with no major issues.

On the gaming front, expect to play most games at 1080p if you don't mind turning down your graphics settings to low-medium, depending on the game. If your favorite game supports DLSS, you might even be able to eke out a dozen or extra frames on the budget GPU thanks to Nvidia AI supersampling technology. 

The 8GB RAM inside the G15 Ryzen isn't great, and to make matters worse it's only single-channel, but should hit the minimum requirements for most modern games like Cyberpunk 2077. At least it should be an easy upgrade later in life if you fancy it. FYI, if you plan on picking up Elden Ring, its minimum requirement for RAM is at least 12GB.

The 256GB storage capacity NVMe SSD means you should probably invest in upgrading or pairing the laptop with a speedy external SSD to keep your games on down the road. I'd use the money saved and cram one of those cool-looking Star Wars SSDs into this, but that's just me. 

One thing you could do is sign up for game streaming services like Nvidia's GeForce Now or Xbox Game Pass, which would let you stream your digital game library in good quality and at pretty low latency regardless of what's under the hood of the laptop. Another plus is that streaming games will free up precious space on this laptop's already tiny SSD as long as you have a reliable internet connection.