http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004XZMBS2/ - $899 + a Free Xbox 360 (since I've an Amazon Student account).

The specs are:

• Intel Core i7-2630QM @2.0 GHz (2.90 GHz with Turbo Boost; 6 MB L3 cache).
• 6GB, DDR3, 1333MHz, 2 DIMM,
• 640GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive (might be 5400 RPM - the page isn't clear; regardless I have a good, existing HDD that I'll likely just replace it with)
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M with 1 GB (with Optimus)

I really need a new laptop and I like this one, mainly because of the CPU. I tend to run Matlab about 3-4 hours/day and and an i7-2xxxQM could really cut down my execution time.

The only real problem is the graphic card. I would've preferred a 540M but 525M is just a slower clocked version with the same GF108 architecture (and still use DDR3 memory). The next step in laptop graphics (560M) seems to be at $1500+ and I might as well upgrade my existing desktop for the extra $600. I'm hoping it will be able to run the following games at 1366x768 with medium settings & 2/4AA:

• StarCraft II
• DiRT 2 and 3
• Skyrim
• and maybe Battlefield 3 (this is a big IF)

It would be awesome if you guys could give me an educated guess on how this would do in terms of gaming? Thanks in advance. Good luck, have Pentiums :)

I can play StarCraft 2 on my 15" laptop with a first gen quad core, GeForce 9800m GT graphics card and 4 gigs of RAM with medium settings and a steady 30 fps.

So, that laptop can handle StarCraft quite handily I think. Don't know about the rest though.

There are some gaming benchmarks for that graphics card here that should give you an idea of how it'll perform. It seems to be a decent, mid-range card that'll run most things on medium settings with a decent framerate.

THAT'S MY LAPTOP! 
It seems good, better than mine anyway

Well- it is a laptop.

Seems pretty beefy to me...go for it

Thanks guys, appreciate the advice.

@MaximusArtimus: I just ordered it, before Amazon runs out of stock!

@Management: Yeah, the 525M seems to have very similar raw specs to your 9800m GT (actually yours is a bit faster) but with an updated architecture. Hopefully, this one works just as well as yours!

@MattyFTM: Cheers Matt, I did go through the benchmarks before - they are the first result on google! - but their numbers fluctuate a lot. I still appreciate that you took the time to search it for me!

@UlquioKani: Oh! How do you like it? Is the build quality/screen/speakers okay?