When you're picking a laptop for Football Manager, it's tempting to focus on the graphics card. It sounds like the star of the show, right? But in reality, it's more like a showboating winger who rarely delivers. The real workhorses are your CPU and RAM. They're what make the game run smoothly from day one of pre-season to your tenth-year Champions League final.
The CPU Is Your Engine Room
Football Manager runs an incredible amount of calculations behind the scenes. Every scouting report, transfer negotiation, tactical simulation and matchday event runs through the CPU. What really matters here is single-core speed. That’s the thing that pushes the game along when it's processing all the behind-the-scenes data.
So if you’re comparing processors, look beyond the number of cores. A fast quad-core CPU will usually outperform a slower eight-core one in Football Manager. You’ll notice the difference most when advancing days or loading into a save. For FM26, something like the Intel Core i5-1135G7 or AMD Ryzen 5 5600H would be a solid choice.
Why RAM Matters More Than You Think
Now let’s talk memory. RAM determines how much data the game can access quickly. The more leagues and players you load, the more your system relies on RAM to keep everything ticking along without freezing or slowing down.
The official recommendation for FM26 is 12 GB of RAM, but we’d suggest going for 16 GB if you can. It gives you a bit more breathing space for those long-term saves and large databases. You’ll be able to run multiple leagues at once without your system gasping for air.
If you’ve ever tried loading a huge save and heard your laptop's fans kicking off like a jet engine, that was probably the RAM getting overwhelmed.
SSDs Make a Noticeable Difference
Storage might not be the first thing on your mind, but it makes a bigger difference than you’d expect. Football Manager constantly reads and writes data. Between autosaves, loading times and in-game processing, a faster storage drive helps everything feel snappier.
This is where SSDs come in. An SSD loads your saves and boots the game in seconds. A traditional hard drive can take minutes. It’s one of those upgrades you never look back on once you’ve made the switch. If you’re buying a new laptop or upgrading an old one, an SSD is essential for a smooth experience.
FM26 Hardware Specs - Now Available
Read our guide on the minimum tech specs needed to run FM26. Read now →
