A Ryzen 7840 = 8840 = Ryzen 7 250 CPU would make this cheaper and the gaming performance would remain the same.
Also:
Quote from: notebookcheck.net/AMD-Ryzen-AI-7-450-Processor-Benchmarks-and-Specs.1197762.0.htmlThe CPU is identical to the older Ryzen AI 7 350
So going for a AI 7 350 would also have been a bit cheaper, but not as cheaper as with a 7840.
There was news that 12 GB VRAM on a 128-bit memory bus width (=using 4*3 GB memory densities) is going to cost similar to 12 GB on a 192-bit one (=using 6*2 GB memory densities). If you find this too expensive, getting a desktop PC and a (used) 12 GB VRAM GPU should be quite a bit cheaper, so much cheaper in fact, that you can get an additional non-GPU laptop on top, since we are talking about laptops here.