I need a best bang for my buck laptop!

No chance. Your budget limits your options severely, just make sure your laptop will have dedicated graphics while shopping around.

Few notebooks could, and it would lag even on lowest of settings.

There's no difference between a laptop and a notebook. I use notebook because it's actually quite bad to use your notebook on your lap.

In order to play the game on high, you're going to need a high-end graphics card. The 9800mGTS might be able to do it, but I'd feel safer with at least a 9800mGTX. All in all, this notebook is going to be $1500+

It will run the game, but not on high.

I don't recall ever saying anything about call of duty here?

What comparison? Where did you find that someone got COD5 to run on high at that res? (which isn't astonishing, it just depends on hardware) Why is it that if COD5 runs, so should san andreas? I don't understand your logic or your question.

I'll have to admit though, until now I thought you meant GTA4. I'm not a fan of the series and don't know it well. In that case, the 4670 will do just fine.

ok so since you now know im talking about older 9x games is there maybe a cheaper route than the laptop i suggested on newegg?

you can find cheap laptops from this url http://myshoppingcenters.com/index [...] ptops.html