My laptop screen has died. Its possible its just the screen and it could be fixed, but this is beyond my own ability and I am reluctant to sink too much cash in to a laptop that is 5 years old.

I am looking for a replacement that can be used easily for work and study, but obviously its most taxing requirement will be gaming. I've laid out some thoughts below and would welcome any guidance you can offer.

Priorities:

• Decent portability (so not insanely heavy or bulky, reasonably sturdy).
• Sufficient power to play games very well at 1080p (this seems like a reasonable goal to keep costs manageable)
• In the realm of $AUD2000 (but less never hurts).

To this end I have seen a few laptops with a combination of the below:

• i7-8750H Processor 9M Cache, up to 4.10GHz/2.20GHz
• Either a 1060 MaxQ, 1070, 2060 graphics card. I read mixed things about what is required, but bear in mind I'd like to play games pretty well for several years
• 8GB or 16GB of RAM (I'd welcome input here, 32GB starts to get very pricey and seems unnecessary).
• An SSD of ok size plus a standard or hybrid HDD

Bear in mind that AUD prices for laptops are insane. There is a big long list of most of what is available here. 

I play shooters, open-world RPGs, RTSs and a lot of Civilisation 4 (on a new PC, I'd like to be able to play 5 and 6 without having 90 minutes between turns though!).

Should have added - looking at 15.6 inch displays. 13 inch is a bit small for gaming and with 17 inch you can kiss portability goodbye.

17inch with that power is a must get a good backpack or case

Lets be honest that additional 2 inches aint going to make or brake portability, if it was about that youd take the 13incher

Dont skimp on the card either otherwise your back within 3 years

Honestly when I ever did laptop gaming I still always connected to an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse. So I have always used a 13 size laptop.

Beyond that I would only consider 16GB or less. I currently have an 8GB desktop (that I am going to replace soon) that works just fine with gaming and everything else I throw at it. I am going 16GB for the new comp I am building only because I am a programmer using 3 monitors. You don't need 32GB unless you are doing stuff way beyond the typical user like video rendering or compiling huge programming projects.

A 1070 is probably the most you need.

16GB it is then, will rule out 32.

If a 2060 would be overkill then maybe I should think carefully about getting a mobile/MAXQ version of whatever card I do get.

@kirby, I wont skimp on the card but 17inches really is too much for my purposes. I'd not even fit it in most of my bags.

What are the specs of your last laptop? I'm afraid you won't see much improvement on those turn times in Civ.

i7-4710MQ

GTX 860M w 2gb GDDR5

16GB RAM 1600MHZ

SSD

^

This guy slows down in the late game for Civ 4, nevermind the struggle after the first few turns of Civ 6

Are you saying the SSD is somehow responsible for the turn times? Because it's actually entirely on the CPU. Looking at the 2 CPUs best case scenario would be a 50% improvement, more realistically 20-30% or less.