Just to follow up on this thread for any of those that helped me out, I ended up purchasing the Asus G73Jh, but I not the one I posted links to. Turns out Best Buy sold a cheaper version for $1200 which was a welcome discount. And although it came with only 6 gigs of RAM and a 1600x900 screen instead of 1920x1080, it is the same in every other way and is an absolute monster. I almost prefer the lower res screen since it is still pretty high res and I fear the 1920x1080 screen would have affected the performance from the mobile graphics card.
It devours just about anything I throw at it with full settings with ease, the only notable exceptions being ArmA 2 and Crysis, whose settings have to be moderated in exchange for better performance. And as CaptainHaplo said, DiRT 2 really is devastatingly pretty and it runs it at a constant 50+ fps with every option on. Couldn't be happier with the purchase so thanks for the advice and the happy ending!
