I don't get the people who dis running sims on a laptop. I have run sims on a laptop since forever. I usually spend about $1,500 Canadian for a decent laptop. And yes there are gaming laptops out there, but once you put that name on it the price jumps.
@Kita5399 gave you a good option and @ChelleJo gave more good advice. spend the money on ram 16 at least, personally i7 is the better processor. Watch the SSD and hard drive. (for some reason default downloads go to the SSD drive with your windows and it's a pain to fix) You might be better off just to get the largest hard drive you can afford and don't worry about the SSD drive.
If you can have someone take the bloatware that comes on new computers off - that is even better.
