^Indeed, if anyone wonders I did pick the one I mentioned earlier. The link is no longer functional, but the specs were.

Intel i5 processor, Nvidia GTS 360M graphics card (GDDR5 1GB), 4GB DDR3 RAM (but you can easily open the RAM compartment to expand it to 8GB, which I was surprised at), Windows 7 x64, 4USB ports, and for a pretax price tag of $849.99. Granted it was only available in certain stores, but I was lucky enough to get the last one in my county.

I've had it for a couple of weeks now, runs Sins at max settings with mods like a breeze (starts to lag a little when over 4000 fleet supply of ships start shooting at each other while you are watching, forcing it to render all the particle effects, but I think that is understandable). Just started playing Oblivion, also with mods, and I have had a very smooth and constant frame rate at high detail, might jump up to highest. The only other game I have that might test it more is Empire:Total War but I'm in no hurry to play that right now.

It is a bit heavy and the battery life isn't great, but Asus actually has a pretty decent power management utility that if I decide to customize it out will substantially increase it. If you are playing games you will want an outlet nearby, but it seems it will easily last any one college class of using the internet or office tools. It also gets a bit hot when gaming (you can tell within a minute when the GPU got turned on), but the heat fan on the side seems to be sufficient as long as it is not obstructed. Might get a heating pad just in case, not quite sure yet. Also some people seem to find the keyboard weird, but I've gotten used to it and love that it has a numberpad (something my last laptop didn't have).

Overall, so far I'm quite happy with my decision.