I understand your points, but I'll offer a rebuttal to the concerns you mention.

Desktops don't beat laptops dollar for dollar, not for OEM products, because desktops are not portable while laptops are and that has nothing to do with the hardware and software included in the product. You would have to add a huge premium markup to desktop price to do such a comparions (e.g., double the price) and even then the desktop would not actually be portable. As I said in the original post, these observations exclude people who want to take a chance at building their own machine (taking a chance due to no warranty on the work and needing to fix anything wrong themselves).

Just fyi, heat isn't a concern for gaming laptops, at least not anymore than desktops, because they are specifically designed with the gaming needs in mind. This is true for any high-end laptop that is intended to do high-end work such as video processing. Heat is only a concern if the hardware is pushed beyond its intended limits for extended periods (e.g., trying to run demanding software or do demanding high-end work on a PC that is only intended for general use such as office documents and email). To offer a different comparison, heat is no more an issue for high-end gaming laptops than it is for consoles of the past and current generations.

As you mentioned, no one is going to be playing games (not demanding games, that is) or do any other high-end work using only the battery, or at least not for long. In fact, that's one of the huge areas of research (new battery designs and squeezing more life out of current designs). It has become even more of a profitable research area with the increased use of mobile devices.

Most people do not upgrade desktops, either, so that isn't really a concern except (again) for people who want to actually build a PC. There are far more users of PCs than those who wish to build and use them, after all. For most users, choosing to upgrade would mean taking it to a shop and paying to have the work done. Most people simply don't bother especially when the price of their current machine plus an upgrade would be about the same as simply buying a new machine. There's little point, and having an extra machine (or several) is usually useful. They can give the old machine to friends or family who don't have one or want to upgrade, etc., so it works out well for everyone, at least currently.

All of these points are elements for the OP to consider. Obviously, if the OP wishes to build a machine on their own, these points take a backseat to the fact that such a custom machine won't have any warranty for the work (aside from the individual parts warranties).

Edit:

I forgot to mention this, but Gstaff states on the new Bethesda Twitchworks video that they cannot reveal PC requirements yet but will do so closer to the game's release, implying that it will be stated clearly sometime before the actual release. One would think that it will probably be stated a few weeks earlier as well as posted on retailer and etailer sites. I seriously doubt that they wait until the very last minute as that would not be physically possible (i.e., they have to have it finalized for production runs of the physical retail package).

Portability is a factor into the decision of which to buy. If I don't need portability, then buying a laptop makes no sense, as I can indeed get more performance, for the same, or less... money.

In my statement, the ONLY factor I am considering is cost vs. performance. That's it. If you actually *need* a laptop, well, then you get to spend more money. That's just the way it is. This is what I do for a living. I actually do have a clue here.

When you say you want it "for school" are we talking college here?

It is pretty handy to have a laptop for college. Dorms are small and being able to carry around a laptop is nice.

What isn't nice is carrying around a heavy laptop or carrying around an expensive one that you have to constantly worry about getting stolen.

That assumes you're a full time student living at the college.

I'd still wait for the game to get here before buying anything though. It's not too hard to guess what the game will need to run but what you can't guess are the little things. Sometimes not having a specific technology will render you unable to turn something cool on.

Thanks so much for all of the help, guys!

So.. this is my gf's laptop

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00QNXA7OC/ref=pd_aw_sbs_147_10?refRID=111Q5BBK1C3SN8Y9V01J#featureBulletsAndDetailBullets_secondary_view_div_1437453380649

This is one I was looking at

http://m.newegg.com/Product/index?itemnumber=N82E16834318636

I dont NEED a laptop for college, I can get a PC if I can get one well priced which will run FO4 on at least medium settings.

Thanks again, you all rule.

Worst comes to worse I'll get a Ps4...

uumm i can play the witcher at very high settings with no problems so i guess it can run this aswell

Intel HD Graphics 4400

integrated graphics. Not a gaming machine by any stretch of the imagination.

I just want to be able to play the game without lag, perhaps a cheaper desktop? Im re enrolling up the street at berkeley city college, a community college right up the street

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229608

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883230025

Which one are you referring to? My gf's laptop plays all number of games great, fallout 3, fnv, skyrim, half life 2, black mesa, etc.

It doesnt have to be a "gaming machine" it just needs to be able to play FO4

You rule, thank you!

I think our definitions of 'play' are not precisely similar....... If you don't mind minimum settings, and low frame-rates, it *might* work..... Intel video does support hardware transform and lighting now, but, still does it thru software, so it is slow, and not precisely stable.

Either of the two machines that thegreatsquare linked would run the game FAR better than either of those two laptops you linked.... and the prices are reasonable as well. (I like the second one better, simply because of a "real" case, not the small form factor feller in the first one.)

I like the 2nd one better because the CPU is almost 2x better and it has 8GB of RAM as opposed to 4GB in the cheaper one. It's a ~$100 upgrade for $50. ...and the case will make upgrades easier.

This game is going to be far harder to run than Skyrim, that much is already evident. Skyrim can run fairly fluently on Intel HD Graphics 4000, which is just an integrated graphics chip. If you're running the game on something like that or if you get below 60 FPS for Skyrim then I would urge upgrading. Build a rig capable of running GTA V at least. That game is a good metric, probably a better one than TW3.

I have 8GB of RAM, an i-5 processor with 4.20Ghz and an AMD Radeon HD 7900 series card.

Morrowind with very awesome graphics works fine, but in larger non-vanilla cities, it lags.

My heavily modded Oblivion CTDs often due to lack of memory, poor thing. And lags too.

Skyrim works fine, even with a heavily modded set-up and rarely crashes on me. A few minor glitches too.

Fallout TTW works fine with both games, and only had a few minor glitches.

Playing my simple game in the Unreal Engine 4 makes my PC actually overheat, but that's on Epic settings.

So my guess would be that the performance would be somewhere between Unreal Engine 4 and Skyrim...I think.

that was my thinking as well.

Medium is where id start with that. 850m is a fairly recent midrange mobile GPU, but should be able to run the game reasonably.

I'll have to make due with my current rig for a while, though I'm going to have to get a new monitor soon as mine is going out.

I have an i5-3570K (3.4 Ghz), 8 GB RAM and a GTX 660 (2 GB)

I'm certain that will run the game acceptably, though I doubt I'll be able to max out the graphics.

Maybe medium or medium-high at 1080p as a guess

If you don't want to build your own (I do, and it's not hard but I understand why people don't) then Cyberpower will custom build pretty much whatever you want.

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/Summer_Special_II

It would help a lot if you said how much you wanted to spend.