Laptop for Multimedia Course, High end 3D Modeling/Rendering

So as it says, I'm looking for a laptop for Multimedia/ High end 3D Modeling/Rendering. I'm hoping to get a good quad-core one, with a good, maybe SLI graphics card, and tons of RAM.

1_What is your budget?
Below 5,000 American Dollars

2_What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
Bigger than a 15, maybe around 17...

3_What screen resolution do you want?
As clear and as sharp as possible.

4_Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Somewhat in the middle.

5_How much battery life do you need?
A fair amount.

6_Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
Not really, just something here and there, nothing too intense.

7_What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.)
A lot of High-end 3D and Photo/video editing.

8_How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need?
500gb to 300gb

9_If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post the links to them.
(Not really sure if this is what posting links to specific site means)
http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/
http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/notebooks/laptop-alienwa...

10_How long do you want to keep your laptop?
For as long as I can, this will be a one time investment for Uni.

11_What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
Not really sure about that, any advantages/disadvantages?

12_Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
I'm not really sure, right now it's between Apple and AlienWare, not really sure about anything else...

13_What country do you live in?
Moving soon to Singapore to do a Multimedia Course.

14_Please tell us any additional information if needed.
Right now the desktop I run is a AMD Athlon 64-bit X2 Dual Core 3.8 Ghz, with 2GB RAM and a Nvidia DDR2 512MB VGA. For storage it has a 160GB internal and a 1TB external. I'm struggling with it as it is, I run mostly Autodesk Maya, and use Mental Ray, FryRender or Bunkspeed HyperShot for rendering (depends mostly on the situation).

To see the type of things I want to continue creating with the new laptop I'm hoping to get, check my gallery > http://thesaladman.deviantart.com/gallery/#Automotive-a...