Best Laptop for Hogwarts Legacy – Requirements & Reviews (2022)

Hogwarts Legacy is an immersive, open-world action RPG set in the world first introduced in the Harry Potter books. Embark on a journey through familiar and new locations as you explore and discover fantastic beasts, customize your character and craft potions, master spell casting, upgrade talents and become the wizard you want to be.

Hogwarts Legacy is fairly demanding on your hardware, but not so much that it would necessarily push the graphics card requirements of the latest RPG games. What does that mean? Is it really necessary to buy an expensive gaming laptop for Hogwarts Legacy? Are there affordable options? These are all good questions, so I did some research and came up with some solid recommendations that should help gamers like you make an informed decision on what will work best for your budget.

Requirements for a Hogwarts Legacy laptop

Major The best processor for Hogwarts Legacy in 2022

As for the importance of a processor, it’s pretty straightforward. Your processor dictates how fast your game runs, which in turn affects your performance. For example, a slow processor will make your game stutter and lag – slowing down gameplay.

Requirements

Hogwarts Legacy is a quite demanding game, so if you want to have a smooth gameplay experience, you’re going to need a powerful laptop. You should look for one with at least an Intel Core i5 processor, or an AMD Ryzen 5 CPU if you don’t want to spend as much money.

Recommendations

So what are my recommendations? To start with, I’d recommend looking for one of these CPUs:

Ryzen 5 3500U – minimum recommended processor
i5-10300H – good choice for gamers who care about price point and low power consumption
i7-11850H – best suited for players who need heavy graphics on high resolutions

TL;DR

get at least an Intel Core i5 processor, or an AMD Ryzen 5 CPU if you don’t want to spend as much money
Ryzen 5 3500U is the minimum recommended processor for playing Hogwarts Legacy
i5-10300H is a good choice for gamers who care about price point and low power consumption
i7-11850H is best suited for players who need heavy graphics on high resolutions

Major What’s the best memory for Hogwarts Legacy?

Hogwarts Legacy is [not the most demanding game out there](official fortnite system requirements), but you never know what the [future holds](official minecraft system requirements). So, I would always recommend to play it safe and get 16 GB of RAM.

Minimum (8 GB)

There’s one case where I would say 8GB is enough – [if you are playing on a budget](pcgamer list of cheap gaming laptops) and don’t want to upgrade the laptop anytime soon. Or if you have an extra RAM stick laying around and can put it in to double the amount of memory at any time. Otherwise, I’m afraid it’s a no-go.

Recommended (16 GB)

In any other case, get 16GB of RAM for Hogwarts Legacy. That’s plenty for the next few years of gaming and work, without getting into issues with running out of memory or even wanting to upgrade your system.

In conclusion, it’s not difficult to make sure that the laptop has enough RAM for games like Hogwarts Legacy.

Best (32 GB)

I would also recommend getting the most you can afford, even if it’s a bit more than you think you need. There’s no downside to doing so, as the memory is relatively cheap and won’t break your bank. And with 32GB, you’ll be safe for the next few years of gaming and work without upgrading your system.

TL;DR

16GB is recommended for Fortnite, but 8GB is fine if you don’t plan on upgrading your laptop anytime soon or have an extra RAM stick laying around
16GB is enough for any game in the next few years, so get as much as you can afford (32GB)

Major The best graphics card for Hogwarts Legacy in 2022

It’s tough to predict the performance of Hogwarts Legacy before it’s release. That said, it is unlikely that an integrated graphics chip will be sufficient for playing this game. So it’s important to know what GPU can handle it at the moment. My recommendations are organized in 3 tiers – bare minimum, recommend, and best.

The bare minimum tier consists of AMD Radeon RX 5600M and GTX 1650 which provide playable framerates on low settings on Full HD. If you’re interested in running Hogwarts Legacy on higher settings, then I recommend RTX 2070 or better GPUs with their commensurate price tags.

Bare minimum ($1000)

If you want to play Hogwarts Legacy with any hope of staying above 30 FPS, then I would recommend Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 or AMD Radeon RX 5600M. These GPUs provide playable framerates on low settings at Full HD resolution. If you’re interested in running Hogwarts Legacy on higher settings, then I recommend a Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 or better GPU with its commensurate price tag.

Recommended ($1000 – $2500)

If you have a budget around $1000-$2500 and you want to play Hogwarts Legacy smoothly, then I would recommend a Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 or better GPU with its commensurate price tag.

TL;DR

without actual benchmark data, it’s hard to predict how this game will perform on different GPUs
but based on requirements and other games’ benchmarks, I’d recommend GTX 1650 or RX 5600M for low settings at Full HD resolution, and RTX 2070 or better GPUs for higher settings at Full HD resolution.

Optional requirements for a Hogwarts Legacy laptop

Optional What’s the best storage for Hogwarts Legacy?

Hey, I heard you’re looking for a laptop to play Hogwarts Legacy? You don’t need to look any further. I’ve got the perfect one for you. It’s a 256 GB SSD, the absolute minimum size for the game.

Is HDD an option?

HDDs are cheaper than SSDs, but their lower speed will drag down your gaming experience. So let’s skip them altogether and only recommend laptops with SSDs.

Picking an SSD

That’s the easy part. All you need to know is that 256 GB is a good starting point, 512 GB is more than enough for most people, and 1 TB will suffice for those who want to keep all their games on one laptop. There are some nuances of picking the right drive – if you want faster load times or lower power consumption, go with a laptop with an NVMe PCIe SSD.

Hogwarts Legacy is a pretty light game in terms of memory requirements and not taxing your CPU or GPU – so don’t sweat over the details.

Recommendations

I’ll break down our recommendations by size:

For a budget-conscious customer looking for the bare minimum storage space required for Hogwarts Legacy – go with 256 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD combo
For someone who wants to play the game on their computer exclusively but doesn’t need a lot of storage space – go with 512 GB SSD

TL;DR

buy an SSD if you want to play Hogwarts Legacy on your laptop
get 256 GB if you’re on a budget, 512 GB if you don’t need a lot of storage space, and 1 TB if you want more than enough space for all your games