Out of Pod Experience

Get a Toshiba Satellite P855.

Good CPU, Plenty of RAM, nice big 1TB HDD, half decent GPU.

Dont know how much it would cost where you are but over here I have seen it as cheap as £600, which is roughly 1100$.
Good entry level gaming machine, I got one for my dads birthday and its the best I could find with a good balance vs cost.

Anything less than £500 seems to have mediocre hardware like i3's and intel chipsets with only 4-6gb ram and 500gb HDD, some have like 32GB SSD and 250gb main drives.

Just doesnt justify the cost if you spend the extra, you get so much more.

I've actually gone a bit nuts and continually upgraded since your last post.
So far, I'm leaning towards these two:
http://ncix.com/products/?sku=76569&vpn=9S7-16GA11-272&manufacture=MSI%2FMicroStar&promoid=1393
http://ncix.com/products/?sku=70410

And to reiterate my original point, don't buy an alienware

I've got one and I've been extremely happy with it for the last 3 years (did some upgrading of video cards, ram, sound card, etc)

Sadly I paid twice as much as I should have for it

I did the whole planning thing with a computer once.... the bill totalled $22,000 but it's nice to dream

She'll make you a sandwich for this, right?

Eh, alienware actually doesnt have a super bad name as far as reliability, more that they are overpriced. I have been happy with mine up until blue screens related to motherboard/ram issues. They did there job, replaced literally every part, that didnt fix it, so I get a brand new m17x r4. It has been a little frustrating, but the customer service has been better than any other company I've had to deal with. Really its all about your warranty, just make sure to extend it and really no need to worry.

I work in IT, deal with HP laptops everyday and have to say my alienware (dell) is a hell of a lot more reliable than HP.

Edit: oh and the built in Alien FX that keyboard lights sync with Eve online is freaking awesome. Keyboard lights up when being shot, different color lights for empty capacitor etc. Its pretty sweet.

Just buy whatever you want to buy in your budget but again, get that warranty.

And Alienware is Dell

First one, similar to the one you posted before, but even better CPU and GPU (2GB 660M, about 33% faster than a 650M, 50W TDP vs the 45W TDP of a 650M), and 2GB of RAM extra (8GB total) for about 1230 CAD, if you don't mind the extra cash (not really much extra considering the upgrades made), sure thing, go right ahead.
You probably will seldom be utilizing its full GPU power for EVE anyway, even the 650M will very likely be enough for EVE if you stick to the built-in screen.
Other games, or adding an external monitor for a second simultaneously fully displayed EVE instance, then that can change the story, but, eh.
NOTE: what's with the creepy "15.6" Full HD (1920x1080) LED backlight, Anti-glare 15.6" HD (1366x768) LED backlight" mention ? Does that mean you can get the 1080p screen but it does not have anti-glare, and if you want anti-glare you need to step down to 768p ? I don't get it...

Second one... I don't know... CPU back to previous levels and upgraded GPU (3GB 670M, about 25% faster than a 660M, but 75W TDP, bordering on mid-range desktop graphics level consumption), and 12GB of RAM (not sure you'll actually need more than 8 though, probably even 6 would be quite fine) but also significantly higher price, at almost 1500 CAD... seems a bit steep.
I would also expect the laptop to have trouble cooling the video card (it's afterall a +50% hike in GPU power consumption) and battery to be pounded pretty badly by its full potential usage.
Then again, it has a 9-cell battery (the previous one only had a 6-cell battery), so overall, this one might actually last quite a bit longer on internal power alone WHILE PLAYING EVE because you won't be using the GPU at anywhere near full potential anyway (just hoping the GPU can properly step down power-wise to conserve battery)... but the machine is almost 50% heavier because of it too, which might not be all that pleasant for you.
Also, for EVE, right now, in heavy-duty environments (large fleet engagements and such), the CPU quickly becomes more important than the GPU past a certain number of players, but the CPU power difference is quite tiny, so it should not matter that much, and only in very few circumstances.
All in all, it really depends on what else you plan to do with it other than EVE.

They're both probably a bit overkill if your heaviest game-wise hitters are EVE.

P.S. You'd probably be better off with this one instead :
http://ncix.com/products/?sku=71893&vpn=G75VW%2DRS72%2DCA&manufacture=ASUS
LIMITED TIME price of 1380 CAD (normally 1500CAD), 17.3" anti-glare 1080p screen (not the puny 15.6" of the others), 3GB 670M, 8GB system RAM (quite sufficient), freaking awesome cooling system, almost desktop-like keyboard layout (quite important for me, hopefully for you too), 8-cell 5200 mAh 74 Whrs battery (so, actually, almost certainly better than the 9-cell of the previous one), an all-round GREAT gaming machine. The weight however, that might slightly inconvenience you, it's roughly 30% heavier than the second one you linked... then again, it's a 17.3" machine, so, what else would you expect... eh. You are not really expected to use it in your lap anyway.

Internet opinions are somewhat split, but noticeably more favourable towards the G75 as far as ergonomy (especially the keyboard, which is awesome for a laptop) and build quality goes vs MSI and other laptops (even vs some alienware machines).
Stick a large SSD in the secondary HDD bay and you have yourself a MONSTER machine !!!
I would recommend a relatively affordable but fast and very reliable 180GB or 240GB Intel 330 series SSD (the 240GB should cost around 200CAD).
You can use a part of that SSD as HDD cache, but at those sizes, not worth the bother - just use the full size as OS + app/game drive (don't even bother partitioning it), and use the HDD that comes with the laptop for media and other storage purposes (move "my documents" and some other user files there too). With 8GB of system RAM and such a large SDD size (nice wear leveling options), you don't even need to worry about moving the swap file to the HDD either, just leave it on the SDD too (just make sure you leave a few good dozen GB of free space on the SDD at all times).

Cooling pads are "meh", decent starting cooling design is much more important.
A cooling pad lowering the temperature of the general bottom area of the laptop will do a much noisier and power-hungrier job compared to an internal fan guiding air on top the proper heatsinks. Not to mention that a decent one costs quite a bit extra too.

As far as I have seen, the MSI GT60 series (or at least the vast majority of the models) have a single large fan pumping out air out of two exhausts.
If I am not mistaken, the air goes in through the bottom left-back corner (so you want to keep that free of obstructions), then out through a lateral vent in the back, and a vent in the back to the left side. The cooling-dedicated area is fairly small, about a third of the front-back length and about a quarter of the left-right length.
The heat pipes from the CPU and GPU are not very long, but not exactly short either, and they both unload through the same fan.
It's funny that the look of the laptop makes you think it has at least two fans, but the back right-side vent is for almost purely aesthetic purpose on most models. And the front side vent-looking things are neither vents nor speaker apertures.

That being said, the cooling system does seem to be adequate for most practical purposes either way, or at least that's what "the Internet" says.
Just make sure to dust it thoroughly every now and then.

Using a cooling pad on a MSI G60 will have a quite limited utility, since you're not really adding a lot of air flow beyond whatever the fan is already pumping through, and you're not getting any significant air flow to much of the rest of the electronics inside either through the rest of the openings (some slight cooling of the bottom RAM sticks at most, but none for the top RAM sticks).


If you can get that second machine you listed at 1250 CAD, get it.