A gaming laptop is like an enchanted sword. It can do all the usual sword things—chop, slice, cleave—but an enchanted sword can do a lot more, like talk or glow, or deal extra damage to orcs. When it comes to raw power, a gaming laptop is almost always going to have the upper hand over a regular laptop. The key distinction is easy to spot: Gaming laptops all have discrete graphics cards. This is the enchantment that gives your gaming laptop its extra oomph.
All laptops have graphics chipsets, usually just built into the processor, so they can handle light gaming (think Hearthstone or Gwent). But a discrete, or separate, graphics card (also called a graphics processing unit or GPU) is a processing unit solely dedicated to rendering the visuals in your games. It’s an essential component in any gaming laptop, and it’s usually why they tend to be a bit pricey. Enchantments don’t come cheap, after all.