I am gettin a Dell laptop with wat is listed as an "nVidia Geforce 5200 64mb AGP x 4" graphics card. Is this good enough to play current and future games? and also - i believed it was AGP x 8 normally? what will this mean to me?

First of all no laptop has a graphics card, persay. What you are talking about is an integated Geforce 5200 chip using shared main memory running on the AGP bus. This will run slower than the same graphics chip on an AGP card. I am not a gamer so someone else can comment but I don't think this is much of a gaming machine.

to begin with a geforce 5200 is crappy for desktops, it lacks the power needed to run current games at high resolution with high details, and it will not run future games

i have said it before and ill say it again, dell laptops suck! now this is not to say that a dell laptop will not be sufficient for your needs and that you will not love it, many people do love their dell laptops, but i didnt love mine

laptops really are not meant for gaming, but lately there has been an onslaught of laptops meant just for that purpose
if you have a big budget, check out alienware laptops
and if you jus want the dell that can play games look around and see if they have a model with a better graphics chip on it
i know of some great budget desktop graphics chips and while i dont know how they compare to their laptop counterparts, it gives you an idea
in order from good to best
ATI chips:
Radeon 9600, 9600Pro, 9600XT
Radeon 9700, 9700Pro, 9700XT
Radeon 9800, 9800Pro, 9800XT
Comparable Nvidia chips:
Geforce5700, 5700 Ultra
Geforce 5900, 5900 Ultra
what is painfully obvious to one person might be just painful to the other

Generally speaking, laptops make poor gaming machines. The primary reason is they lack real cards. Instead laptops have sound and graphics built into the motherboard (aka Integrated or Onboard components), like budget desktop systems.

Laptop components are designed to use little power, be lightweight, not create heat, and not take up space. Not exactly a recipe for performance...

Good Luck,
Bob

http://www.alienware.com/product_detail_pages/Area-51m/area-51m_compare.aspx?SysCode=PC-LT-AREA51-M&SubCode=SKU-PERFORMANCE