Best laptops for Forza Horizon 5 in 2022

No matter how you look at it, Forza Horizon is the perfect racing game. It gives you a taste of what it’s like to race, gives you your hands on over 450 cars and an open world to drive them in. There’s nothing left to do but buy the best gaming laptop for Forza Horizon 5.

It turns out that finding the best laptop for Forza Horizon 5 is no easy task. There are so many laptops on the market, so many different configurations and whatnot that I felt myself confused and unprepared even though I was prepared for this “mission” in advance. That’s why I thought about having a partner in crime – we’ll be looking at what every price point has to offer and seeing if we can’t find a decent gaming laptop. So here we go – basic requirements, top budget options, high-end horsepower wonders. No-nonsense approach to choosing a laptop for Forza Horizon 5 should be up your alley!

Requirements for a Forza Horizon 5 laptop

Major Deciding on a processor

There are many components that will affect your gaming experience on a laptop, but one of the most important ones is the processor. CPUs are designed to handle the large number of calculations required for games, which makes them integral to gaming performance.

Requirements

Forza Horizon 5 is a demanding game, but not at the same level as Call of Duty or Battlefield. You’ll need at least an Intel Core i3-1005G1 processor to meet minimum requirements, but for a decent gaming experience, I recommend Intel Core i7-1065G7. AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS is your best option if you want to take advantage of high refresh rate displays or achieve a high FPS with 4K resolution.

Recommendations

When looking for a laptop for Forza Horizon 5, I recommend looking for one with at least an Intel Core i3-1005G1 and, ideally, Intel Core i7-1065G7. AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS is also a good option if you’re looking for high FPS in 4K or 144Hz displays.

Major My memory recommendations for Forza Horizon 5

RAM is one of the few component that is easy to get right when it comes to laptops. As long as you’re not on a tight budget, 16 GB is the perfect amount for most people.

Minimum (8 GB)

There are two situations where 8GB RAM is more than enough. First of all, if you’re on a tight budget and you know that you can upgrade to 16GB or 32GB in the future. Second, if you know what you’re doing and are willing to get your hands dirty by adding an extra stick of RAM later.

Recommended (16 GB)

For Forza Horizon 5 – 16 GB should be enough for most people, unless they are using it for other purposes, such as working on CAD or rendering video. It’s plenty of gaming and work.

Best (32 GB)

If you are the type of person who streams gameplay, has multiple games open, or uses Chrome 100 tabs open – consider investing in a 32GB model. The more RAM, the merrier, but it’s not necessary by any standard. I’d instead invest in other components, such as CPU or GPU.

Major The right graphics card

Minimum graphics (under $1000)

Since there are no benchmarks yet, it’s hard to say what is the best graphics card for Forza Horizon 5 (I’ll update this section in the near future with accurate banchmark results). The only thing I can recommend is NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Mobile. It will be able to run Forza Horizon 5 on lowest settings with playable framerate, but it’s not guaranteed that the game will run smoothly.

Recommended graphics ($1000 – $2500)

It’s still too early to say what is the best graphics card for Forza Horizon 5, but if you’re looking for a good compromise between price and performance, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 is your best bet.

It will be able to run Forza Horizon 5 on high settings with 60 FPS.

Best graphics ($2500 and up)

If you want the best graphics card for Forza Horizon 5, go for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080. It will be able to run Forza Horizon 5 on highest settings with ~100 FPS.

Optional requirements for a Forza Horizon 5 laptop

Optional My storage recommendations for Forza Horizon 5

Forza Horizon 5 is the latest installment in the popular racing series, but you can’t just pick any old laptop and expect to play it. You need a good storage setup.

Why is storage important?

First of all, let’s talk about why storage is important. To put it simply, a lot of what you do in a game is load files from your hard drive into your computer’s memory. The more space you have, the more data you can store on your hard drive and less of it will be loaded from the disk every time you load a level or open up a menu. It will make your gameplay smoother, faster, and free up some memory for other tasks while playing the game. So the bottom line is – get as much storage as possible.

The bare minimum

The bare minimum you should go for if you want to play Forza Horizon 5 on a budget is 256 GB SSD. It will be enough for OS and a few other essential programs, but won’t leave any room for games or anything else you might want to store on your computer’s hard drive. It’s enough for most people, but not everyone. And that’s why we’re here – to help those people who need more than just enough.

512 GB SSD?

I’d recommend getting at least 512 GB SSD if possible – that would still leave some room for extra stuff like pictures or videos (depending on how many you take). But this option might not be available to everyone, depending on how much they are willing to spend on their laptop or if they can afford it at all (some laptops are too expensive). If that’s the case with you, I recommend getting as big an HDD as possible – it’ll help with loading times and general performance while playing Forza Horizon 5 even if it doesn’t provide any additional storage space to install games or anything else.

Optional Choosing a display

Forza Horizon 5 is the latest iteration of Forza’s signature series. Like any open-world racing game, the graphics and performance are critical. However, the Forza Horizon series has never been renowned for its visuals – it’s about racing and exploring to your heart’s content. With that in mind, there are two crucial considerations when choosing a laptop display for Forza Horizon 5:

Resolution

A resolution of 1920×1080 (FHD) is ideal – you won’t have to worry about any less visible detail on screen. If you’re not in a rush to upgrade your current laptop – stick with FHD for now. But if you want an upgrade right away – QHD or 4K are viable options. A higher resolution will allow you to see more detail at once, which might be helpful when driving at high speeds. And it’ll make textures appear smoother, which is always nice.

Refresh rate

You can achieve refresh rates of 120Hz or more on some laptops, but that requires an expensive configuration with a high-end graphics card. For most people, 60Hz will suffice just fine – but keep in mind that it might be easier to spot frame drops with a high refresh rate display.

5 Best Laptops for Forza Horizon 5