If you're doing a little digging to find a cheap gaming laptop under $1000, you might run across several options out there. Your best bet would be to create a list of features you want from the laptop and search according to that list.
The Processor or CPU
A good gaming laptop must first be configured to carry a powerful processor. Now for this limited budget, some good suggestions would be dual-core processors, since these are both powerful and affordable at the same time. Single or dual core processors are great for simple tasks, but since games demand more from the gaming system, it's a lot better if you start with a quad-core processor just to make sure everything runs fine.
For a laptop that's under $1000, you will get a laptop that's configured with a good quad-core processor like the Intel Core i5 or the Core i7.
RAM or System Memory
In terms of system memory a good target to start at would be 4GB. Extreme gaming laptops might carry up to 16GB, but for a modest gaming laptop, 4GB of RAM is a good start, since most modern games don't even go beyond 4GB in their system requirements list. This amount will allow you to also do some editing work, graphic design and even a bit of multitasking.
For our budget you can find laptops that carry at least 6GB of system memory installed. This will allow you to multitask efficiently and even run the latest games without a glitch.
The Graphics Card is the most important hardware component
The video card that comes with a gaming laptop has to be dedicated. What this means is that it has to have its own dedicated memory, so it doesn't take from your available RAM in order to run. For this budget you'll probably get away with a decent model from either nVidia or ATI with about 1GB of dedicated memory. This is fine if you don't mind running games in medium to high quality settings, but for extreme graphics you'll definitely need to do better than this.
Now if you wish to purchase a laptop for gaming and are thinking about the graphics card installed, you'll be glad to know that these laptops carry at least a 600 series GPU from NVIDIA.
Laptop Screen Size
Games are better played when they're viewed properly and you don't have to strain your eyes to keep the crosshair on your target. This means that the screen size on your gaming laptop should not go under 15 inches, since then all the targets you're hunting will be mere pixels. Average laptop screen sizes are in the 15.4 inch range, but you might also find 17 inch screen laptops in this budget range and they're quite capable of displaying decent resolutions too.
Typically, laptops in this price category come with the standard 15.4 inch screen size. Now there are some gems out there which have a 17.3 inch screens which allow for greater resolutions and a better picture overall.
Gaming Laptop Hard Drive
The hard drive is often an overlooked feature in gaming laptops, since all it does is store information. You should not overlook one aspect of HDD though, and that is their rpm. More is better in this case, so don't settle for an average laptop hard drive with 5400rpm, but try to go for a 7200 rpm model, or, if you're willing to spend a bit, go for an SSD drive.
Cheap gaming laptops under $1000 usually come configured with at least a 500GB hard drive, but usually you will find laptops with the 1TB drive installed. It's a rare sight to see notebooks in this price range which carry an SSD drive, but this is something you should think about if you consider future upgrades for your portable gaming machine.