Yes, these laptops are usually cheaper than the rest because you can buy them CHEAP second hand.
So, the first one is a 7700HQ, a modern CPU that is used in a fair few laptops, while lower powered than it's desktop counterpart, it is still a 4 Core 8 Thread monster of a laptop CPU, the second one is a 3940XM, which you can place into a Thinkpad T430 with a GPU, use the extended 9 Cell battery which gives you the portability options and longer battery life and still costs less than $500.