Question Which of these gaming laptops is better

[Zerogradius]

Hi guys. This is my first time posting. I am here because I am trying to decide what my next laptop should be and I have come up with a few options.

MSI Crosshair 15
15.6'' FHD Display 144 hz
Core I7 11800 RTX 3060
16 GB Ram, 512 GB storage
Cost: $1222.99

Lenovo Legion 5
15.6'' FHD Display 165 hz
AMD Ryzen 7 5800 RTX 3050 Ti
16 GB Ram, 512 GB storage
Cost: $1099.99

MSI Katana GF66
15.6'' FHD Display 144hz
Core I7 12650 RTX 3050 Ti
16 GB Ram 512 GB storage
Cost: $999.00

Acer Nitro 5 AN515-58-725A
15.6'' FHD Display 144 hz
Core I7 12700 RTX 3060
16 GB Ram 512 GB storage
Thunderbolt 4
Cost: $1199.99

Acer Predator Helios 300
15.6'' IPS Display 144hz
Core I7 11800 RTX 3060
1 6 GB RAM 512 GB storage
Cost: $1180.00

My budget is about $1200.00. I don't care too much about battery life since I will keep it plugged in most of the time. For the most part, I will be using the laptop for gaming; primarily for FPS games and JRPGs. I don't care about playing games on max settings. As long as I can get 60 FPS and the display is good, I am fine.

I do have 2 primary requirements. Firstly, durability. I can't afford to buy one of these every other year. I bought a Dell G 15 in December 2020 that died 4 months later. I don't want to go through that again. Something that can last 3-5 years is ideal. I live in the Caribbean and cannot get these machines repaired in my country. That leads me to my second requirement, cooling. It can get quite hot here and I need something with a decent cooling system. Of course, I will also be getting a cooling pad.

I would appreciate the help. I haven't played Octopath Traveller since April of last year and I really want to get back to it. Any other suggestions aside from what I listed above will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Based on specs alone, and not on brand reputation, this:

Acer Nitro 5 AN515-58-725A
15.6'' FHD Display 144 hz
Core I7 12700 RTX 3060
16 GB Ram 512 GB storage
Thunderbolt 4
Cost: $1199.99

It's has the best CPU and the best GPU among the options you listed. Acer makes pretty decent products too so I wouldn't be too concerned in that regard. Based on my experience regarding brand reputation and durability, the Lenovo would likely be my choice and it MIGHT actually be the better choice since all these laptops pretty much have the same cooling configurations so the more powerful they are, the more likely they are to throttle or become thermally damaged from continuous gameplay, which largely is what destroys most laptops these days. If this is for gaming ONLY you'd be a lot better off looking at building a desktop PC which you could pretty easily do for that budget.

 

[geofelt]

See if you can't find reviews for each on sites such as notebook check, ultrabook review and such.
Here are two examples:

https://www.ultrabookreview.com/48410-lenovo-legion-5-review-2/

https://www.notebookcheck.net/MSI-Crosshair-15-B12UEZ.630414.0.html

Pay attention to the cooling system.
Laptop coolers must be small and light, hence not so efficient.
They often throttle while under heavy cpu and gpu loads.

Perhaps more important is the quality of the display.

 

[Zerogradius]

Thanks for the responses.

The main reasons why I have not tried to get a gaming desktop are spacing issues (I don't have a dedicated place to put it) and I don't like the machines I see on Amazon in my price range. Maybe in a couple years, I will get one.

Oh and I also intend to use the laptop for some office work. Mainly in Microsoft Word and Excel.