Advice for buying a gaming notebook

Given that adding RAM to a notebook and swapping hard drives is simple, with a finite budget should I invest more into the video card or the processor?

It used to be a near impossibility to attempt swapping out a processor or video card in a notebook. I havent been in the market for anything for years now so I don't know if this is still true.

I know for a fraction of the cost I can put together a desktop that will far exceed any notebook but that's not an answer to my question.

Go to newegg and compare the laptops with the best processors available. Likely there should be a handful of core 2 quads out by now. Then balance out the hardware ,screen size and video cards, versus the price. You can probably find the best bang for your buck under 1500 with most of the latest hardware.
Good luck.

i would look for something with a 512mb graphics card, 4gb of ram almost seems to be the standard now.
2-4 core processor is good.
as for processor and video card swapping i think it's very hard if not impossible to do.

Short answer is

For gaming, the video-card is the key, more is better.

You should also use 4 gigs ram.

A nice dual-core proc will be just fine, at this point the cost of quad-mobile won't be worth it for the budget minded.

Also, realize, the bigger the vid-card, proc and ram, the "significantly" lower the batter time/life will be.

Also, expect this gaming laptop to be much heavier than other laptops.

"BIG NOTE" a gaming laptop will make a lot more heat, and laptops tend to have poor cooling, keep this in mind....