Special requirement configuration request!

Hi, I need some advise from the experts here.
I'd like 2 configure a powerful laptop (not necessarily a powerful gaming laptop, but a powerful one in most aspects including gaming).
regarding my uses with it,
I don't intend to play FPS games or Action games like Assassins creed for example. I play those on my xbox 360(on which I've already made investments, so don't want a duplicate)
I'd love to play RTS, Strategy games, Indie games etc. This is where I'll be spending most of my time. Games like Diablo3, Starcraft2, sins of a solar empire and so on, are the ones I'll want to play at the best experience setting.
I want to use it for my work as well. Its not graphically oriented work, but the tools I'll be running on it are such cpu and memory hogs like SQL server manager and some other tools.

What would you recommend for the above uses? (I chose this particular laptop over the dell workstations and the asus equivalents just because this is such a cool laptop compared to anything else I've seen and I really like the alienfx thing )

I was thinking on these lines
- Luna silver
-720QM 1.6 Cpu
-Ram ??? (anyone who uses their laptop for the kind of uses as mine ?)
- One ATI 5870 HD (is this enough for my kind of gaming use?)
- RGB LED (read enough on this one - mandatory piece here)
- Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
- McCaffee antivirus (anyone has a different opinion on this?)
- 2 year warranty (man, no risks with this one considering the price of the package!)

I dont want to start off a gaming debate here, But I too, like many others am a bit concerned about the changes happening to PC gaming. Please dont get me wrong, This is the platform I grew up playing games on and I haven't had as much fun with any console and any game as I had playing Diablo2 with my buddies over 10 years ago.

Keeping the above in mind, Is it a good investment to get the dual 5870 graphics cards? now with that said, If the kind of games I play get that demanding 2 years from now, I'll gladly buy the cards.

 

*820 is the middle of the road sweet spot
*only two channels for memory. 2+2 or 4+4
*More Ram memory will help start applications faster.
*Microsoft offers free antivirus software now, MSE
*RGB way better colors, wow.
*5870 is plenty for today, Dual for tomorrow.
*Old hardware drivers may not work with win 7 64.
*Windows 7 64 is a big step foreward
*2 years is plenty of time for issues to develop.
*If you are connecting to a network you must buy version higher than HOME.

 

You sound like your computer usage is similar to mine. I was also considering to buy the Precision M6500, but got the M17 instead for the looks and price.

I got the 720QM, but if you are a heavy Maya/3DMax user, the 820 will offer better rendering speeds. I got 8gb RAM. Always max out RAM for any professional 3D applications or Photoshop. Single HD5870 is enough. I can run NFS Shift comfortably and at the same time get excellent frame rates on ArchiCAD OpenGL modeling.

Get Win 7 Pro 64. Ultimate is not necessary unless u want the Language Pack and Data Encryption. Use the money you saved on a good carry case. Its going to be a heavy bundle to carry around.

So far i have not faced any problems with 64bit compatibility. I'm not sure about converting old 32bit SQL databases to 64 bit... but I'm sure you will figure it out.