Thare are some financial programs that can use the juice, especially if there is some financial modelling going on.
But that does indicate that a high end video card isn't a big concern.
In laptops you want to go with Intel. They have dominated this segment over AMD for quite some time.
Both those systems have 120GB hard drives. Does he need that much space? From a performance point of view, a 7200 rpm drive makes a noticeable difference so unless he needs that much I'd drop to a faster but smaller drive. The screen is WXGA so it will be 1280x800. That is pretty common, but what size is the screen he uses now? If he currently uses 1024x768 then he will love the extra space. If he uses a larger screen (1280x1024) then he may notice the screen is shorter. (In which case you would need to upgrade to the WXGA+, or higher)
I would tend to go with the 6400, given the choices you list, but as I mentioned, find out his real spending limit and build the machine up to that point. That is really the only way to build a machine with a minimum of regrets.
There are only a few things you can easily upgrade on a laptop, so try to get as much as you can up front.
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