You need to start with the right laptop! I switched to a laptop 18 months ago, and never looked back. But it was a top-of-the-line Asus RoG G73SW. That died (in warranty), and they've just replaced it with a G75SX. Both are waaaay more powerful than any of my gaming rigs from when I was into that (until a couple years ago). This new one is a super-duper 3rd gen i7, 32GB of RAM, GTX670MX (3GB GDDR5 VRAM), twin drives (a large SSH and a 1T conventional for storage) etc etc etc. It rocks for gaming, either on the full HD screen or via HDMI to a flat-panel. I can't imagine needing to upgrade this for years to come. And I can take it with me when I go places.