You did not mention your budget. Anyway...

...Check the ones from Mountain.

They pay a lot of attention to the refrigeration and general durability, while offering different graphics cards for different budgets. The graphites are great, but the others might be enough too.

However, this quality is not cheap. On the other hand, these laptops do last.

Also consider the physical weight of the different options, including that of the charger.

EDIT: However, as you know already, it is good to think if a desktop would do. The one advantage of a laptop is mobility. A desktop, in principle, has all the others for the same money: relation between capabilites and price, ease to modify it in order to extend its lifespan, possibilities for refrigeration, durability, connectivity...

Indeed, so many laptops go from an office with a dedicated screen and keyboard to a home with dedicated screen and keyboard... In the end the laptop bit is useful for travelling or taking it to meetings and things like that.

I dont know what it is about laptops? but over the past five years i have noticed a trend where all the older technology seems to be increasing in the pricing instead of going down?
I bought a laptop around five years ago Toshiba Satelite P875 intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU @GHz
16 GB RAM, 64 bit operating system, Intel HD graphics 4000 for about AUD $1200:00

This year a friend asked me to recommend a laptop, i walked into JB-Hi FI store expecting to see far better laptops than mine after five years..... No, instead i began to wonder if i just walked through a time dimensional door and went backwards in time by 10 years, im like WTF is this shit they are selling????!!!!!!

What the hell happened to Laptops in the last five years that made garbage become expensive?

Edit: Actually, i think the answer is sitting right in front of me.... My old laptop is 'BIG' 40cm x 25 cm x 2cm

All these newer laptops are trying to be small, THATS THE PROBLEM!

Hahahaha, well, of course.... if you go back far enough, but i was just talking about the last five years.

I think it is because the efforts are going into making laptops thinner and lighter because that is what the market demands. If you want to add power to that list, its going to get VERY expensive. Meanwhile those who dont mind having a larger laptop which can be much more powerful, yet still cheap, there is less market for that.

I think the OP might want to consider buying something second hand if he wanted a gaming laptop that is not insanely expensive.

Laptops today are facing the competition of tactile screen devices (tablets, including iPads and Surfaces and the Android ones). Ever tried one with a physical keyboard? In many situations they are effective replacements for a laptop. That might be a reason for trying to make laptops less punishing when carrying them around.

Anyway, light and ultralight existed way before 5 years ago.

Never ever buy a brand new model gaming laptop. You MUST read thoroughly done test reviews on them first. I spotted lots of a certain model of an expensive gaming laptop from ASUS in a shop's outlet corner. A quick online search tells me that particular model came with insufficient cooling so they had to underclock it heavily leading to utter rubbish performance at €3000. The ever present problem of all gaming laptops: overheating.

It can be used in many ways. I have two laptops that I (can) use for gaming. The bigger 17" ASUS one mainly is in one room nowadays because I have the 15" work/leisure laptop too which is more portable and weights less.

Places where I generally use the 15" laptop:

- At the office as desktop replacement, connected to two big monitors + USB keyboard and mouse and speakers. I am writing this message from this setup. At the end of the workday, I take the laptop with me home.

- If at the workplace I need to go downstairs to the server room, I can easily detach the laptop from docking station and continue doing stuff in the server room. No dedicated monitor or keyboard there, I might take my small wireless mouse there with me if I think I will operate longer there.

- At home I might have this connected to the big screen TV and its stereo system through HDMI, using external mouse and keyboard. Either work or web or gaming.

- If I want to watch TV while I use the laptop, then I take it to the couch on my lap, using the integrated keyboard and the wireless mouse. This is fine for e.g. web browsing or playing Icewind Dale 2, if nothing interesting comes from TV. :)

There is nothing wrong with GOOD gaming laptops IMO but keep in mind that you will have to pay more due to portability, they are pricey!. I recently got one that you may consider high end and it is a life-changer for me. I use to play in my free time at work and then I play with my friends at night. The satisfaction of not having to carry a full ATX like I used to do when I moved to the coast and had to carry the whole thing (Mouse, keyboard, screen, case, etc.) is priceless.

TL: DR

It all depends on your lifestyle basically.

I don't get this trend of making super-thin gaming laptops. In fact, I gave one a trial run for a few days a couple of weeks ago, but (fortunately) ended up returning it for a full refund. It was nice and speedy, but after a short while it got uncomfortably hot just resting my left hand on it, and anything halfway demanding made it sound like a mini-vac. That's a problem all these thin ones seem to suffer from.

My old '13 lappie may not be all that portable and slightly unwieldy, but it never even comes close to feeling it's about to burn me or sound like a jet trying to take off. I'll take function over (compromised) form any day of the week.

Thermal solutions are one of the most important aspects of a gaming laptop and sometimes companies don't do very well. Thin laptops use to have that issue. But trust me, they are getting better & better in that matter

I've looked at a number of extensive reviews of today's thin laptops that include actual heat the laptops give off as well as noise levels, and they all very much land in the same ballpark. It's pretty much impossible to get around those pesky thermodynamic issues when trying to cram powerful chips into such small spaces.

I prefer my old clunker's solution. It may not win any beauty or thinness contests, but its solidly built.

"laptop for gaming" is, in general, bad idea. Speaking as person who own one.

You will rather suffer from lack of power, lack of performance or lack of decent cooling system. Thats may be okay, if you are playing 2d indies or old games... but then you dont really need a "gaming laptop" - basically every office machine should be able to handle them

Speaking as a person who owns one (or two) gaming laptops, my experience is the opposite of yours.

And so it goes. Everyone likes to put their personal experience as the universal truth.

Yes, there are very clear disadvantages inherent to laptops, that only get worse when the laptop is going to run demanding games (as opposite to average ofimatics programs).

However, for some people it might be the only viable option. For example, 1) People who actually plays in different locations (be it in different homes; in different places within a house; meeting people in LANs, whatever). 2) People who does need a mobile computer for stuff not related to games but cannot afford a dedicated computer for playing.

Not an automatic decision, for one side or the other. In some cases a laptop might be required... In others, it is going to be a bad idea.