When the Oculas Rift comes on line next year, having the 'box' computer with several monitors idea will be dead because the device drives the video. I'm not 100% sure on a architecture - is the video driven by the headset or the video card. For example, if you have a great video card, does it mean better and smoother the video through the headset? Or is it all though the headset?
A laptop with a good gaming mobile video card could be just as effective as having a Ferrari home gaming PC because a single video signal being driven with the Rift.
BTW Pluto - good choice on the laptop. It should run the new version of AH just fine.