Portable desktop for gaming?

[Benny Boy]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112348

 

[CdnAudiophile]

Get a Haswell laptop with thunderbolt and connect one of these to it: Silverstone External Graphics Card

 

[PCunicorn]

That is a pretty good build. Go for a MSI or Gigabyte board if you can though, and I also reccomend a 4670K for overclocking (but you will need a Z87 board also).

 

[PCunicorn]

Overclocking will come in handy when the CPU gets old and you want to squeeze some more performance from it. But it is $50 more. But still, get a Gigabyte or MSI board.

 

[PCunicorn]

You would need to spend a fair bit more for the board to get a mini ITX Z87. Oh and I just noticed the build you have now isn't very small. Get this board: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128568
And this case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119261
And the parts you have in your build now and you have a great tiny build. Though I reccomend Windows 8.

 

[PCunicorn]

Yes, by a LOT. For a good cheap lappy, I can only reccomend this:
ASUS K55N-DS81

 

[Okedokey]

Get yourself a shuttle small form factor case, uATX motherboard and standard PCIe graphics card with an SSD and a 3570K CPU and 8GB DDR3 RAM. Job done.

Like this?

 

[spirit]

Yeah except get a 4670K and an LGA 1150 board now (Z87 is the best chipset). The i5 4570K and LGA 1150 just came out to replace the 3570K and 1155.

 

[Okedokey]

400 bucks aint going to get you anything that can game.

 

[PCunicorn]

Any of those lappys would game okay, but I would get the Acer with the a10. The last link is broken btw.

 

[Okedokey]

Okeydokey, I'm pretty sure most of these laptops can "game," perhaps not 1080p and the latest shibang persay, but I could came at 920p fairly well, or at least 720p I assume. Which would really more or less put me on par with a console, any of these bellow.

This Acer Aspire V5-552G-8632 is looking to be the best option right now though for a laptop around $500 or under (granted it's $30 more, but still).
Newegg.com - Acer Aspire V5-552G-8632 Notebook AMD A-Series A8-5557M(2.10GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory 500GB HDD 5400rpm AMD Radeon HD 8750M

Any other recommendations around this price with perhaps better hardware for gaming?

EDIT: I just came across this one as well. It has a better CPU but the GPU may be a bit weaker than the above.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...scrollFullInfo

or is it really worth another $100 for the A10 CPU a bit better on this laptop:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DKFFLMY

or this version
http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-V3...pr_product_top

That one for $100 more from amazon, I'm curious as to how well that dual GPU (crossfire) set up is compared to the HD 8750m.

(And I assume I could play all the paradox games, civ, most the total war games etc...)

You said $400. None of those are $400. And even then, you'll get very low fps on low game settings. For $600 or $700 you can get a PC with a much better gaming performance.

Also, don't be fooled. An average FPS of 34 FPS is likely to spend a significant time below 20FPS when spiking, that makes first person shooters unplayable. But if you're happy, then go ahead.