are there enough parts available and is it cost effective?

Just a question I doubt I would do it .......just a thought

YES.

Dell will build you a sweet system for less than $6K.

No.  You can custom order one from any number of vendors but they are just too proprietary to roll your own.

No.

I play MAME on my laptop all the time.

The answer is a conditional YES, but a notebook can never be as powerful as the same generation high end desktop, they're just too power, heat and size limited.  

First, decide the games you want to play and the graphic quality levels you want to play them at, then decide the frame rate that you find acceptable.  Now find the system specs needed to run that game at those settings, at the preferred framerate.  Now go see if laptop components are available that can do it.  Also, take a hard look at the power supply and the cooling.  

A lot will depend on the games you want to play and the quality and speed you're willing to accept.  Also, remember that when the time comes to upgrade, you'll need an entire new notebook, not just an upgraded video card or adding a second card.  

oh hells ya!

Not a very good one.

Yes. It can be built by Dell. It is called an XPS.

Quoted: The answer is a conditional YES, but a notebook can never be as powerful as the same generation high end desktop, they're just too power, heat and size limited.   First, decide the games you want to play and the graphic quality levels you want to play them at, then decide the frame rate that you find acceptable.  Now find the system specs needed to run that game at those settings, at the preferred framerate.  Now go see if laptop components are available that can do it.  Also, take a hard look at the power supply and the cooling.   A lot will depend on the games you want to play and the quality and speed you're willing to accept.  Also, remember that when the time comes to upgrade, you'll need an entire new notebook, not just an upgraded video card or adding a second card.

+1

Alienware used to make a good gaming laptop, but nowdays Dell is the way to go.

However it will weight alot.  It will have a very short battery run time.  It will cost much much more then a comparable desktop.  It will not be as good as the newest desktop components.

That said, I have a 2 year old Dell E1705 Core 2 Duo 2.0ghz with NVidia Go 7900 GS, it was a good gaming system at the time, but I paid a good bit for it too.

Nothing like paying way too much for a portable gamer.

Yes... for the price of three or four gaming desktops

Quoted: Quoted: The answer is a conditional YES, but a notebook can never be as powerful as the same generation high end desktop, they're just too power, heat and size limited.   First, decide the games you want to play and the graphic quality levels you want to play them at, then decide the frame rate that you find acceptable.  Now find the system specs needed to run that game at those settings, at the preferred framerate.  Now go see if laptop components are available that can do it.  Also, take a hard look at the power supply and the cooling.   A lot will depend on the games you want to play and the quality and speed you're willing to accept.  Also, remember that when the time comes to upgrade, you'll need an entire new notebook, not just an upgraded video card or adding a second card.   +1 Alienware used to make a good gaming laptop, but nowdays Dell is the way to go. However it will weight alot.  It will have a very short battery run time.  It will cost much much more then a comparable desktop.  It will not be as good as the newest desktop components. That said, I have a 2 year old Dell E1705 Core 2 Duo 2.0ghz with NVidia Go 7900 GS, it was a good gaming system at the time, but I paid a good bit for it too.

Nice notebook, I remember those.  Unfortunately the games I'm playing right now probably won't run acceptably on that notebook, or just barely.  They still run pretty decent on my 2 year old desktop with a Athlon 4800 X2 64, 4 gigs of DDR memory and 2 7800GT boards in SLI, but only if I get the settings off HIGH and down to MEDIUM.  And Crysis won't run anywhere close to acceptably, and my personal requirements aren't high, I'm happy at a medium graphics level and 25-30 fps.  Or at least the demo wouldn't run worth a damn, maybe they tweaked the final game, but the demo ran so bad I wrote it off till I upgraded.

Of course since I have an SLI system I need games that can run well in SLI, not all can, but almost all can be tweaked to.  It just depends on how long you want to spend messing with them.  And some that the manufacturer says won't run well in SLI, or run at all, will actually work well once the settings are right.

It sucks, I know.  And it's going to be at least 12 months before I can upgrade, unless I sell some guns, which just ain't happening, there are too many good 1-2 year old games I haven't gotten to yet.  The good thing about waiting is I'll get more for less the longer I wait.

Asus makes a few laptops that can be used for games, priced much better than Dell and alienware. Newegg.com

You can build a good barebones Clevo laptop; the same base that Alienware, Voodoo, Falcon-NW have often used. You don't save any money and you are usually cheaper buying the Sager (rebranded Clevo) model direct from a place like powernotebooks.

If you really had an itch to do it yourself, check out rjtech for the components and barebones.

My son asked the question.
I had just picked up a ASUS G50 V . Just came up in conversation.

BTW My laptop is for my biz not gaming ...................the kid keeps eying it, he would love to load a few of his games on it I know