JollyRoger:
Four years ago I bought a Gateway FX6831 Gaming laptop, It's done me well. When a friend came to me and asked what I recommend for a gaming type laptop for a good cost I had to do a little homework. I found the ASUS line of gaming Laptops. I told him to buy the G74SX. It had everything he wanted and the price was fair at just under $1400 dollar. It was about the same price I paid for mine four years ago.
Intel Core i7-2670QM 2.2GHz 17.3" LED Screen 12GB DDR3 500GB Hard Drive Nvidia Geforce GTX 560M GDDR5 3GB 17.3" 1920 x 1080 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Bluetooth 3.0
I got to mess with it for a bit, Games look awesome on it, it can run Borderlands, Skyrim, and two minecraft servers and doesn't even lag. It's a beast of a laptop.
ZWarrior:
Funny you should say that. For my birthday in 2010 I bought a G73JW and loved it. This year the Mrs. needed an new laptop and decided she liked my laptop so she upgraded me to a G74SX. I miss the awesome audio the 73 had, but it is just like you said, it SMOKES!
Believe it or not, I picked mine up at NFM for just over $1000, but it has more power than my 73 for about half the price.