alienware notebook config

[mc1023]

I bought a notebook to play poker on when I'm on the road early March.

Í bought it from dell, it had UXGA(I think) on a 15.4" screen giving me 1900x1200 resolution.

Enough to play 4 tables and have pokertracker and playerview in the background.

I bought it at the time top of the line M processor with 1gig ram. After 2-3 months in I found that it was extremly slow to run 4 tables with tracker updating every minute and playerview running.

Anyhow when I returned home I bought a fresh Athlon 64 desktop and have had no problem since.

I'm planning to travel around Australia/Asia/Hawaii in seek of better time zones to play poker in, which is a move many of the online pros have done.

So this is what I'm looking for in a notebook. I really don't care about the BATTERY conserving M processor, what I really want is POWER. Basically this notebook is going to be my portable desktop that I can take from city to city.

I need a notebook that will have no problems running 4-8 tables, pokerace, several large databases of pokertracker, windows media player, 2-3 different messengers, and firewall/anti-viral software all at the same time. Oh and also I like to play FPS games and World of Warcraft here and there.

So here are the specs I put together over at alienware.

Model: MJ-12m 7700
Processor: Intel Pentium 4, 670 Desktop Processor w/ HT Technology 3.8 GHz 800MHz FSB 2MB
Operating System: Windows XP Professional
Warranty: 3 year Aliencare
LCD Display: 17" WideUXGA 1920x1200 LCD Clearview display with Built-in Camera
Motherboard: Intel 915P PCI-Express Chipset
Memory: 3GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 533MHz - 2 x 512MB / 2 x 1024MB
Graphics Accelerator: Alienware® MJ12m 7700 NVIDIA Quadro FX Go 1400 with 256MB of DDR memory
Hard Drive: 100GB 7200 RPM ATA100
DVD: Slot load 8X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW / 24X CD-RW Combo w/Software
Wireless: External Wireless 802.11a/b/g PCMCIA Card
Audio: Creative Sound Blaster® Audigy® 2 ZS PCMCIA
Other: Additional battery, optical mouse, norton anti-virus.

Total: $4762 USD

The price is a bit excessive, but I don't really have a budget and I want something that'll last me at least a year.

Can I get something similar to these specs without paying the designer computer price of alienware?

Alienware's are usually just pretty Sager notebooks, unless they have changed recently. I would look at pctorque.com and see if you can find a better price for the same machine.

[cgwahl]

Alienware computers are hugely overpriced machines.

Usually built for gamers...

If you want a laptop that will last at least a year that is powerful, you can find many of them from Dell, Toshiba or even Sony for a third or half that price.