With their unique designs and powerful components, gaming notebooks are not your typical laptops. They are faster, feature better quality graphics and have the ability to run complicated programs. But what is the most important factor you need to consider when looking for a gaming notebook? Is it the processor? Is it the speed or graphics?

Here’s what to look for:

• Processor

The processor acts as your laptop’s brain. It has a huge influence on the performance of your system. It handles everything that doesn’t have to do with graphics. It works with your system memory to determine the complexity of software you can run, or how many programs you can run simultaneously.

Gaming laptops should be able to process data extremely fast. Most notebooks feature either Intel or AMD processors. One of the best processors on the market is the Intel Core i7. It excels at serious multitasking and high-demand multimedia creation.

• Speed

Gaming laptops aren’t just for show–they process faster than standard laptops. The speed is due to the processing necessary for loading programs and gaming. This factor allows these notebooks to handle more information at once. One hardware that significantly affects your system’s speed is the hard drive. Given the choice between HDD and SSD, I’d suggest you pick SSD.

SSD or Solid State Drive can give you at least three times the speed of a regular HDD. However, they are a little expensive but with all things considered, its speed is worth the price. Among the SSDs in the market, the new PCIe x4 cards can offer triple the speed of traditional SATA drives.

• Graphics

The GPU or Graphics Card is the most important chip in a gaming laptop. It is the one responsible for producing the images you see on your display. It does this by converting data and transmitting the signal to the monitor. A strong graphics card can provide a visually stunning gaming experience.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M and GTX 950M is a good choice for mainstream gamers. It can churn out some solid frame rates. While for hardcore gamers, I’d suggest GeForce GTX 970M and GTX 980M, they are capable of producing impressive frame rates that are hard to beat.