After all of my research I ended up settling for the Lenovo Y500. Lenovo is owned by IBM so its not some shit company nobody has heard of. For my $880 I got:
1TB storage
Full 1080p screen
Dual NVidia GT650 SLI graphics cards
Intel i5 3230 2.6GHz processor. (I currently have mine running at 3.0 GHz and don't have any problems)
6GB DDR3 RAM (I upgraded this to 8GB because it helps with multitasking. This is the only "weak" point of this laptop stock)
15.6 inch screen (compared to an 11" screen for the macbook air)
All the other bells and whistles (Bluetooth wireless, backlit keyboard, HDMI out, all that jazz. Most laptops come with this stuff nowadays but companies like HP charge you $25-50 for each little upgrade.)
Also comes with Windows on it so that saves $200 or so. (Not sure how much windows costs right now.)
I also just bought a wireless mouse which speeds up productivity a ton compared to a normal trackpad.
This thing is also very well ventilated and is one of the cooler running laptops on the market today.
Other laptops I was also looking at before I settled on this one were the ASUS N56DP and the ACER V3-571G. Both of those are around $650-$750 and are also great laptops.
If you insist on a Mac, you could probably get a last years Macbook Pro or Air much cheaper than buying a new one and could save $200 or so that way?