Hi Tevergreen,
First realize that ALL laptops suck for gaming. Even a laptop with a dedicated GPU will have a little letter "M" at the end of the designation meaning it is the mobile version of that GPU, built to draw less battery and generate less heat as opposed to the Desktop version that is built to kick ass.
Laptops also often have a much lower resolution, so games do not look as good but that helps their puny GPU's generate more frames per second.
With all that being said, if you DO want to game on your laptop you definetly want a dedicated GPU. I did a quick search for you and at 800$ would recommend something like:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152463
With a GeForce GT 740m.
This should allow you to play modern games at low setting and in crappy 1366 x 768 resolution with decent FPS.
Specifically this card was benched at :
FarCry3 Low settings: 65 FPS
Crysis 3 Low settings: 46 FPS
(which is better than I would have though...)
(benchmark from
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-740M.89900.0.html
)
P.
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