looking for a new laptop

Why not a desktop?
Intel Core i5-3570k +z77 motherboard + 16GB RAM + 2TB Harddrive
GTX 650TI Boost/Radeon HD 7850
That should usually cost around $650-700 including everything like a Power Supply and Case

If you still want to get a laptop.
Don't bother with a i3 unless it comes with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M/AMD Radeon HD 8870. The the only question is are you trying to play like Crysis 3 ,Metro Last Light or using the laptop other than gaming like Sony Vegas, Photoshop etc
Because if going for Intel Laptops for extreme gaming its gonna be a little expensive for the speed.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4904408&CatId=4935
AMD APU Laptops are great for the espeically low price. Like the AMD A10-4600M paired in Dual Graphics with AMD Radeon HD 7670M

Or unless your can wait a little bit for slightly more performance
The New AMD Richland is coming sometime next month including the Kaveri APU at the end of the year
The new 4th gen Intel Haswell CPU are coming out this June 6th with merger 10% improvement on CPU Performance while 40% GPU performance increase over the 3rd Gen Ivy Bridge if your gonna be using Intel HD graphics which I doubt. (i5-4670k,i7-4770k) including new laptop mobile CPUs especially for the low TDP ultrabooks.