Quote Originally Posted by Odin
@Shadeswolf and Zenicetus

Thanks for the advice. I have heard from a lot of people that Lap tops have issues running high end games.
Well, that's basically just another way of saying that when comparing a laptop to a desktop at the same price point, the desktop will usually blow away the laptop in game performance. However, if you have money to burn, you can get a purpose-built gaming laptop that can rival just about any desktop system. My daughter in-law's Voodoo PC is a screamer, and it easily keeps up with my Alienware desktop gaming machine. But it's also a $5,000 laptop. And in a year or two, my Alienware desktop rig will beat it, because I can more easily upgrade the graphics with a next gen video card. In fact I could do that now, just by adding a second graphics card on my SLI buss.

Financially I certainly can get more for my buck buying a desk top, however I have two issues that play into this. The first is my family is growing and I am running out of room, my kids are going to take up my "parlor" soon and dad gets a small closet after that :)

Next is I need to be more mobile for work, and a Lap Top will allow me time to work at home, my thought was to combine those needs with the ability to play the limited games that I do. MTW2 (barring disaster from CA) is a definate buy for me down the line.
I can see the rationale for a laptop, but do you really want to commute with one of the larger and heavier laptops that are best for gaming? A true gaming laptop is a beast to haul around... it almost defeats the purpose. If it were me, I'd put as much money as I could into a decent desktop gaming machine, and then get the cheapest possible, very lightweight laptop for commuting and working at home. Maybe even a used one. Most business applications don't need a powerful laptop. In fact, you might consider just getting a tiny USB thumbdrive, and use that to carry files home to work on? This is assuming you already have a computer at your workplace.

I looked at a few of the Dell high end Lap Tops that were made for gaming, and I think I read Dell bought alienware as well. So I need to run a microsoft suite, and my 3d games on one machine. I have about 2000.00 american to spend.

I can get a functional desk top, with good specs for 1000.00, but sacrafice mobilitty. So the real question for me is, can I run Word, Excel, and a 3d game like MTW on a laptop for 2000.00 for 18-24 months (the desired life of the lap top) ? I have never owned a lap top, so I dont know how they perform at all.
A $2k USD laptop will run Word and Excel just fine, but you're not going to get a great laptop for gaming at that price. I think you'd be much better off spending this on a desktop computer. Don't get the fastest processor... buy a few steps down on processor speed, sink money into ram (2 gigs if possible) and get a hot graphics card. If your budget was closer to $3k-$4k, I'd say you could start thinking about a gaming laptop from Alienware or Voodoo, or one of the more powerful Dells.