^ what he says.

dump the laptop idea and get yourself a desktop. works much better with bigger screen and better everything. that budget could (and would) land yourself a decent above average workstation desktop.

can't beat working on a 22" screen with quad core and 4GB of ram. though the Quadro FX is way too much, a decent nVidia GC supporting OpenGL is good enough for both gaming and working.
back in my days, some normal nVidia GC could be modified to Quadro FX series since they're identical. only that the Quadro FX drivers has better support for OpenGL and the normal drivers has better support towards Direct X for gaming.

but of course with a desktop, you lose the portability and chick factor though