As hardware gets smaller and smaller you can pack more punch into a laptop than ever.
You can not seriously be beliving hardware is getting smaller...
HAVE YOU TAKEN A LOOK AT DESKTOP GRAPHIC CARDS AT ALL RECENTLY? (excuse caps, this is meant to represent a slight shock and is not a flame or insult)
If anything, hardware is getting bigger and bigger... Take a look at a graphic card in a machine from 2004 odd. Then take a look at a graphic card like a 275 GTX. You will see how masive modern graphic cards are (which is part of the reason they are so powerful). This is not including dual graphic cards which are even more massive.
My 275 GTX with cooling alone is thicker than most laptops. (2 card slots). Yes it may fit into a laptop but cooling would be seriously comprimized.
Yes you do get more performance per volume than you did in the past. However graphic cards also are larger than before. This means that eithor a greatly reduced graphic card must be used (less shaders, memeory, etc) or the laptop would need to phsycally be bigger (thus defeating the purpose of something portable).
Processors I can agree have gotton faster for the same size. However, even though energy efficency has gone up, they produce more heat when maximumly loaded.
Laptops are also expected to run on battery power, and these mega graphic cards also kill the purpose when they drain hundreds of watts of power.
The end result is that laptops are considerably weaker than desktops. The graphic cards they use are eithor greatly reduced versions of their desktop counterparts (nvidia) or have the potential to suffer overheating if actually loaded heavilly (AMD). The processors in laptops are eithor lower clocked than their desktop counter parts or they also suffer overheating if maximumly loaded.
Unless your fan is cooled with some kind of dyson fan, it will suffer from overheating or will not have the power to compare to a proper desktop.
Ofcourse you can play things like SC2 on them, afterall a PS3 can be run from your laptop battery no problem nowdays. Additionally SC2 was aimed to be usable on hardware that is now 5 years old. However running on extreem is another problem alltogether.
Firstly people do not know how well extreem actually performs cause the patch is not out yet (clicking the play beta does nothing due to region crap). Secondly, even though SC2 is not crysis 2, it still is prety heavy on graphic cards and is capable of frying a 8800GT on high (only high, let alone extreem).
Yes top range graphic hardware for laptops will run the game on extreem, but how well is hard to predict. Low performance may occur when complex effects are used in anything above the smallest quantities (particles, long view range, lot of light sources). Additionally the laptop might overheat if used too long in demanding situations. In any case, the heat it will give off is such that what ever you do, do not put it near easilly flamable material or on your lap (if you plan to live a long and health life with children).
I am using graphic cards lie 275 GTX and 460 GTX desktop models. I have seen both of these drop frames in various maps and situations and you will be hard pushed to get a card as strong for a laptop. I am waiting to test extreem to see exactly how much more often frame stutter will occur.