Buying a gaming laptop...

This is one of the best laptops customize it youself I made it 1800, with a 7900gs, 2 gigs of ram and a t7200 cpu.

http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/cto_inspn_e1705?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

I somewhat agree with MondoCool and say that the Dell systems are really really good. You can get anything from low end to high end with them. However, they are not the only company around. I was personally going to purchase from Hypersonic, because they have THE best laptop in the world right now, if you can shell out $4000, youll have a desktop Core 2 Duo, 7950 GTX in SLI and 3 HDs, so you can do a RAID 0 with two and still have another HD for storage. You can also try alienware, as they make high end stuff too, but I think Hypersonic is better.

www.hypersonic-pc.com

www.alienware.com

A gaming desktop will be both cheaper and more powerful than a gaming laptop. That said, it's pretty much nailed down to one spot, so if you want portability a laptop is the only way to go. I have a gaming laptop and the first question you need to ask yourself is "How portable does it need to be?". The 17" boxes aren't very portable but they have the best gaming scores. There are 15" and 15.4" lappys with good scores though. Here is a link that describes various laptop GPUs. Figure out which chip you want and then see if you can find a laptop with it.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=39568

Btw...mine is a Dell 9400.  Heavy, but good graphics.  Also be aware that Santa Rosa has just been released.  It's got an 800MHz bus as opposed to the original 667MHz. 

This is one of the best laptops customize it youself I made it 1800, with a 7900gs, 2 gigs of ram and a t7200 cpu.

http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/cto_inspn_e1705?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

MondoCool

i saw a pc with intel core duo 7200 and 2 gb ram but how well would that run vista? i hear even high end pcs dont run it great.

What's your budget for a laptop anyways? Do you have any preferences for one? Like size, weight, battery life?

I'd suggest looking at Asus laptops on Newegg.

Asus F3JP

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220142

Asus A8JS (First one comes with XP Pro, second one with Vista Home Premium)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220123

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220137 

Just add a cheap 1GB stick of RAM to either of them and you have yourself a nice gaming laptop. :)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231069

I'd go with the A8JS, since it's lighter and smaller. 14" screen = nice. =]