Help! Purchasing HP Dragon HDX need advice

First time poster looking for some advice! The time has come for me to replace my desktop, and I would like to see many opinions as to what I should do.

First, my intentions with this notebook:

Gaming (WoW, Conan, CoD4, etc.)
Possibly running a small business using it
Multimedia (I want something amazing to watch DVDs on while I'm out)
Schoolwork

The most important things to me are gaming and multimedia. What attracted me to this particular model is the screen...though I can't seem to find a laptop backpack large enough to carry it (any idea on that?). Now, the build I'm looking at is going to cost me around $4k. I'm hoping that some small downgrades can happen so that I can spend a bit less, but it's not the end of the world if I cannot.

Another question that I have is whether or not WoW/Ventrilo will even run on Vista 64-bit. The HP guy I spoke with on the phone said that it wouldn't....but I would like to hear everyone's input and experience with regard to that.

Here is the build, please let me know if there's anything I can downgrade to without suffering greatly in performance:

Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit)

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Extreme Processor X9000 (2.80GHz)

20.1" diagonal WUXGA High-Definition HP Ultra Brightview Widescreen (1920x1200)-"True HD" 1080p res

512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTS Video Card

240GB 7200RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive (120GB x 2)

Microsoft(R) Office Home and Student 2007 (Figuring I can upgrade to business when/if things go that route)

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Is the X9000 Extreme processor worth the extra $350? They offer the Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo Processor T9500 (2.60GHz) for $350 less.

They also offer 320GB 5400RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive for $100 less than the one I selected. Would I notice a huge difference between the 5400 and 7200? Would I be able to purchase a 7200 in the future if I feel that I need that caliber of a drive?

Thanks for taking the time to read this! I'd appreciate any positive input that can be given!

You can get the 17'' Sager NP5793. Well configured for under 3K. I own it's predecessor and love it.

17'' WUXGA screen
Core2 T9300 @ 2.5ghz
GeForce 8800m GTX
4gb DDR2-667
200gb 7200rpm HDD
8x DVD Burner
2 Year Warranty

Total: $2653 w/o Tax or Shipping

If you can, WAIT!

ATI is pushing out the 4XXX series mobile stuff soon. Should run a bit cooler and have the same performance of the Nvidia parts if all goes well.

Also, notebook specs will be changing with Montevina (sp?) incoming soon.

If you wait, and nothing changes except the price went down, you win. If you buy now, and nothign changes, its doesnt matter. If you wait and everything changes, you still win because youll have better hardware.

I 3rd the Sager vote. Great laptop, at good prices. 5793 is you want something a little more mobile. A 9262 if you want a long term desktop replacement.

As far as I know ATI has 3k stuff out for notebooks, and the 4k stuff is incoming. I will see if I can dig up the webpage I found that on.

Main advantage I see with the 4k stuff is better performance in a smaller cooler package.

Either way, I'd still take a long, hard look at the NP5793 series. I own one myself, a nice $2500 config.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] 793-review

Theres the review I wrote on the machine.

And I, too, would not place money on a card (4xxx) without benchmarks for it first.
Wait, or jump, your choice.

There are pics on it, they just aren't actually embedded so i don't blow my bandwidth

Not entirely true.
AMD does not have a wireless chipset, and would require a substituent chip of the chipset to use one - sometimes causing issues. (though most notebooks use addon cards anyway, intel's are more streamlined, coming from the same company.)
Intel actually has the whole package...except their gpu's are nothing special, whereas their processors are.