http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/alienware-17-2014 - this is why I'm interested in the AW17, and a couple other reviews elsewhere.
I have - make that "had" - a 3-yr-old Asus republic of gamers 17" lappy that my wife's nephew took over to use for school, and he erased all my games & other stuff like MS Office

so I guess I effectively gave it to him permanently. SO now I need a new one. Had a Dell M1710 and M1720 before that. But I want a future-proof machine that'll last for years even with new games.
From the review for the MSI Dominator:
"Out with the old; in with the new. MSI outfitted the GT72 Dominator Pro with a top-end Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M GPU with a whopping 8GB of VRAM, which promises desktop-level performance. The GPU shredded through Shadow of Mordor, producing an average of 67 frames per second on ultra settings at 1920 x 1080p"
"The Dominator Pro cut through the 3DMark Fire Strike test like a hot knife through butter, scoring 8,228, which shattered the 4,861 desktop-replacement average. However, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M GPU-powered ASUS G751JY was just slightly more powerful, scoring
8,367. The Alienware 17 and Digital Storm Krypton, outfitted with last-gen Nvidia GeForce GTX 880M GPUs, hit
5,389 and
5,527, respectively."
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Forgot to mention that in Shadow of Mordor, the 880M was barely 30 fps on ultra. 30 fps is considered the minimum for gameplay, and games only get more demanding in the future.
I just hope Alienware doesn't wanna charge arm + leg for the 980M.
Am seriously considering the MSI Dom instead as it would probably be a lot cheaper than AW, but the screen is just "good enough". The Asus has a better, IPS screen but is not even adequate when it comes to audio unless you wanna use headphones, the keyboard not as customizable, etc.
So the best of all would be the AW17 if they offered the 980M..