I've recently just changed up my laptop into a duel boot, lucky enough it came with amd chip and radeon card. It's not much but it had sure helped me for development its only temp until I save up for a beasty laptop.
But then again, just then other day I have a bug with my linux and it's made me think twice about develiping just on my laptop.. and maybe investing in a desktop high tower at least for main development just in case if things go crap again!
Even I have windows for gaming, I did try using windows for programming and I've found I just cant go back, I love my linux mint tessa xfe edition as its a lot more stripped down than cinnamon so even faster.
It's also given me some insight on how heavy some desktop programs really are.
I think for development is most important with a good kick ass processor and ram and a hd or ssd, but then If you want gaming you would be looking at almost twice the double and a good duel graphics card.
My situation is that I'll be self employed soon enough but using my main desktop as main development and then a touchscreen laptop for easy bits I think will work out for me 😊
Which games you looking to run?