All I can add is, "Friends don't let friends Laptop".
I've beaten it into the ground, but you can swing a NICE desktop tower and monitor without breaking the bank.
Search for "back-to-school" or "small biz" hardware. Those units are built for long hours and rough enviroments.
GPUs have gone thru the roof, but there are still some deals out there if you can live without the bells and whistles and the full-color LEDs.
Recently, I scored good deals on GPUs for both of my towers. I think I spent something like $200 for both.
For games like FS8 and 9 and maybe even FSX, low budget still gets you high performance.