Best Laptop for Mass Effect Legendary Edition

Mass Effect is one of the most popular series of games of all time. Unfortunately, it’s had its fair share of controversy. From day one, BioWare has been struggling to balance gameplay, storytelling, character interaction, relationships, and romance. I’ve had my fair share of moments where I had to Google whether some obscure quirk of my Shepard romance with Liara was considered canon. Still, despite all that Mass Effect remains one of the most beloved sci-fi games of all time.

Now, you might have heard of the original Mass Effect trilogy being on sale for quite a few bucks. That’s what prompted me to buy it for myself for the holidays – I’d have never played the original trilogy otherwise (and judging by the reviews – yes, the second game has many issues. And boy, am I glad I did! It turns out it’s better than I remember – that pesky AI! However, if you’re like me and bought into your new love – chances are you’re looking for the best gaming laptops for Mass Effect Legendary Edition.That’s what we’re going to find out today. Let’s go!

Requirements for a Mass Effect Legendary Edition laptop

Major My processor recommendations for playing Mass Effect Legendary Edition

It’s safe to say that Mass Effect Legendary Edition is quite demanding game. I don’t know about you, but I prefer to avoid laggy controls. To make sure this doesn’t happen, you’ll need to get your hands on the right laptop for playing Mass Effect.

Requirements

A great way to tackle this is by finding a laptop with a good processor. For starters, the minimum requirement is Intel Core i3-1005G1. But if you want something better – you’ll need Intel Core i5-10300H or higher. Finally, if you’re looking for something even better than that – I recommend Intel Core i7-1185G7 or higher.

This might sound like overkill, but trust me when I say it’s worth it. If you’re an experienced gamer, then you know how important the CPU is in determining FPS performance and low framerates are often what cause gameplay issues.

Recommendations

Here are some of my recommendations for laptops with processors that are compatible with Mass Effect:

• Intel Core i3-1005G1 – the minimum requirement
• Intel Core i5-10300H – my personal recommendation
• Intel Core i7-1185G7 – best option for experienced gamers

Major Graphics card for Mass Effect Legendary Edition

Choosing the best graphics card for Mass Effect Legendary Edition is a tough one. As this article is targeted at gamers, I’ll break my recommendation into 3 categories – bare minimum, recommend, and the best.

For those who want to play Mass Effect Legendary Edition on the cheapest possible graphics card, you’ll need to use an Nvidia GTX 1650 Ti. For those with more modest budgets and mid-range requirements, you can go for GTX 1660 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 5600M. The most desirable cards for playing Mass Effect Legendary Edition are Nvidia RTX 2060 and RTX 2070.

Bare minimum:

This category applies to gamers who don’t want to spend a dime on a new GPU and who still want to play Mass Effect Legendary Edition on their computer. Unfortunately, they’ll have to make do with integrated graphics which will result in unplayable framerates of ~20 FPS on the lowest settings.

One thing we can try is picking up a $1000 laptop with integrated graphics, or spending less than $500 if possible. You can also opt for an old laptop model with an outdated GPU – GTX 1060 3GB should be sufficient enough for this game.

The other solution is picking up a cheap dedicated graphics card – GTX 1050 Ti should suffice here. But beware of low specs as these cards might not run other games smoothly.

Recommend:

If you have about $1600 to spend on a new GPU, then I recommend that you buy GTX 1660 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 5600M which will allow you to reach 60 FPS on the highest settings for Mass Effect Legendary Edition. If you are able to invest even more money in your computer’s hardware, then I suggest buying RTX 2060 or RTX 2070 which offer excellent performance even at 4K resolution (depending on the rest of your system).

Best:

The best graphics cards for playing Mass Effect Legendary Edition are those that exceed the $2500 threshold. I recommend RTX 2080, RTX 3070, and RTX 3080 as these offer excellent performance for any resolution and high refresh rate monitors.

Major The best memory for Mass Effect Legendary Edition in 2021

Minimum (16 GB)

If you’re on a tight budget and plan to upgrade the laptop later – go for 8GB. Otherwise, 16GB is the most sensible option.

It’s worth mentioning that 16GB will allow you to run Mass Effect Legendary Edition on medium settings without compromising too much on performance or quality. If you want to max out every graphical detail – I’d recommend looking at laptops with 32GB of RAM.

Recommended (32 GB)

In my opinion, the sweet spot for RAM size is 32GB, as it allows for some future-proofing and doesn’t require a big financial investment. The sky is the limit if you have money to spend – just be sure that your gaming rig will stay on top of your requirements as new games come out!

Optional requirements for a Mass Effect Legendary Edition laptop

Optional Choosing the right storage for Mass Effect Legendary Edition

Storage options

Laptops with SSDs are the preferred choice for gamers, and we’ll only mention models with solid state drives. You can’t go wrong with a 512 GB or 1 TB SSD, but we’ll mention models with an M.2 slot for extra storage if they fit your budget.

Price

Don’t worry about price too much, as storage is usually an easy upgrade. Entry-level laptops might come with 256 GB of storage space, but that will be more than enough for most people. It’s not uncommon to find laptops at all price ranges with 1 TB of storage, and 2 TB is the maximum you should get without breaking the bank.

Recommendations

A 256 GB SSD is a good choice for those who don’t need a lot of storage space, and those who plan on upgrading their laptop. It’s also a great option for those with low budgets. A 512 GB SSD is the next step up and will be more than enough for most people, and 1 TB is plenty for most people with large collections of games and movies.

Optional Deciding on a display

In a nutshell, there are a lot of things to consider when choosing the best laptop display for playing Mass Effect Legendary Edition. I’d need to give you a brief overview of what they are before I can recommend a specific one. But in this guide, I’ll only cover the basics: resolution, refresh rate, and panel type.

Resolution

There are four options for laptop displays: HD (720p), FHD (1080p), QHD (1440p), and 4K (2160p). If you’re looking for something other than FHD – look into the other three. And if you’re not interested in 4K – FHD is more than enough.

Refresh rate

The refresh rate tells us how many frames are being shown on the screen per second. It’s measured in Hertz (Hz). If you want to be competitive – this is important to take into account. But it’s not so important for Mass Effect Legendary Edition.

Panel type

There are three types of panels that can be found in modern laptops: TN, IPS, and OLED. TN panels are cheap and fast – but offer subpar image quality. IPS panels offer better image quality – but cost more money. And OLED panels are expensive as hell – but also offer the best image quality available today.

5 Best Laptops for Mass Effect Legendary Edition

Table of Best Laptops for Mass Effect Legendary Edition

Laptop	Price (approx)
Lenovo Legion 5	$960
Dell XPS 9710	$1140
Acer Predator Helios 300	$1840
Acer Nitro 5 AN515-45-R9QH	$3180
Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen	$3650