"$4000" o_o' Buy a good (but cheaper) laptop for 1000-1500, keep it for 2-3 years or whatever length you're comfortable with, and buy another laptop in the future? Whatever high-end hardware you can buy (for crazy prices) now is going to be slower in a couple of years and wayyyy less valuable. Of the two you posted, the MSI should probably be better for gaming, I'd suggest to go for that. Those novatech laptops however seem way better priced to me though. Ultrabooks look cool and are shiney and everything, but usually lack a good GPU which may suck if you don't have a decent desktop.