Best Top End Windows Laptop

[Snarf]

Yeah, this'd be close to my choice but that means running Windows in a VM, which I've heard works really well but am loath to recommend it to the friend who asked me this question. He'll be running CAD/CAM stuff. When I need a new laptop I'll go the Apple route myself and see what happens.

You dont need to run windows in a VM, you can use bootcamp to run it directly on the apple hardware... but if your going to do that then I'd question if its worth paying the "Apple Tax" just to have the hardware and run windows... for the same price you can have a thinkpad x1 Carbon...
For half the price you can get a lenovo yoga 3 pro (I know it doesn't meet your RAM requirements but then again neither does the mac)