The Gateway P6860FX is one great gaming laptop that comes under $1500 in price. The video card inside (a nVidia 8800GTS with 512MB of memory) is certainly an attractive piece of hardware. And if you throw in a large hard disk, along with an Intel 1.83GHz T5550 processor, you've got a winner on your hands.

The Gateway P6860FX gaming laptop

The HP DV9700t/z series of laptops are also great for gaming and they do in fact come under $1500. Although some folks might argue that HP laptops are more for multimedia than for gaming, I'd disagree with that viewpoint. These laptops from HP are powerhouses. Just look at the HP HDX18t for example. I think HP is really beginning to come into their own in terms of laptop performance, and beginning to offer gaming capabilities to the average consumer with their immensely powerful laptops

What's that? MSI? For those not in the know, MSI is a good Taiwanese laptop manufacturer who have been very active in the market for some time. I'm really impressed with their latest offerings, especially the MSI Wind, which falls in the category of mini-laptops . The MSI GX700-200 is a great gaming laptop with a 17 inch display, 1680 x 1050 resolution, an Intel T8300 processor, as well as 4 GB of RAM. You also get a 320GB hard drive, plus a nVidia 8600M GT card with 512 MB of GDDR2 memory. The price? Only $1249 + tax and shipping. Amazing price eh? I thought so too.

The MSI GX700-200 gaming laptop
 

Ok, let's continue. Another gaming laptop that is under $1500 is the ASUS G71G-A1. Another Taiwanese manufacturer, ASUS basically created the mini-laptop market with its ASUS EeePC 900. . The ASUS G71G-A1 is a gorgeous entry with a 17-inch screen, an Intel T9400 processor, 6 GB of RAM, a 500 GB hard drive and a nVidia 9800M GS graphics card with 512 MB of GDDR3 memory.

The ASUS G71G-A1 gaming laptop
 

Last but not least, we have the MSI GX700 which is another gaming laptop that goes under $1500. This unit has a 15.4 inch display screen, 1440 x 900 resolution, an Intel T8300 processor, 3 GB of RAM and a 320 GB hard drive. Graphics wise, it uses the nVidia 8600M GT card. All this retails at $1299 + tax and shipping.