What do you think about Dell XPS 17?

#1 Id say unlikely, despite putting fancy numbers next to mobile graphics, they never perform as expected, they overheat fast and then the autothrottling kicks in and makes things worse.

If you want a desktop with the same performance as the XPS 17, buy a 5 year old one with an 8800GT.

As far as min spec for what you want to achieve, a GTX 460 would do most of what you want, and move up from there, though bear in mind the bang for you buck starts to go down from that point.

3ghz+ and 16gb memory are a really easy goal to achieve, especially with the budget you have, pay more for better memory, in fact id say get the best you can for whatever motherboard you purchase, generally upgrading the CPU at a later date is easy and cheap.

#2 The XPS 17 is a good laptop for the price but, like Bloodknight points out, for serious development on a budget you still can't beat a desktop machine.

#3 I bought one when they released the L70X2 model(current version);
Q2630,6GBram,2x1TB 7200's,GT555m(optimus sucks).
I bought it as a secondary mobile semi-dev station. Of course desktops are better, avoid HP at all costs.

My only complaints about the xps17 are:
- optimus sucks but it's manageable, get the one without it if you can.
- Heat is not much of a concern (TGB makes it heat up more than T3D with a full level)

The Asus Stealth laptops: Asus' G74 laptops are great laptops. I needed something business-like that could perform when needed.

//
"If you want a desktop with the same performance as the XPS 17, buy a 5 year old one with an 8800GT."
in jest; kinda true...technically speaking: not true at all.
4 cores/8 threads, 3GB ded. video, outperforms many desktops I have used within the last 5 years. It's actually a decent computer for $1k.

#4 My main machine here in the office is a Studio XPS laptop which is pretty comparable to the spec of that XPS 17. Honestly, the starting specs of that one are pretty good. It even has a decent default video card, well except for the Optimus part. I would probably spring for the 6GB RAM myself at least. My Studio XPS only has 4 and there have been days lately where I wish it had a bit more to spare.

#5 Thanks for the replies guys, if anyone knows where I can find a good laptop / desktop for development + playing the above mentioned games can you please post links?

Thanks