Alienware Up-dates M14x, M17x and M18x Game playing Notebooks

Alienware Updates M14x, M17x and M18x Gaming Notebooks

Alienware has refreshed its gaming notebook lineup with new video cards, screens, and storage options including SSD and hard drive combos. Expect to see the new Intel "Ivy Bridge" processors available in these notebooks when Intel releases them in the coming weeks.

M14x R2

This is the first time the 14” M14x has been refreshed. This “R2” model features an Nvidia GeForce GT 650M graphics card which replaces the previous GT 555M. Additionally it is available with up to 16GB of memory, a Blu-ray drive, and SSD+HDD storage combination options.

The storage options consist of a large hard drive and small mSATA SSD caching drive (32GB/64GB) or two SSDs in RAID 1 (256GB SSD + 256GB mSATA SSD). An mSATA SSD resembles a piece of memory and attaches in a special slot on the motherboard, compared to a traditional drive that resides in a drive bay. The HDD+SSD options start at $75 for a 500GB HDD + 32GB mSATA SSD. The M14x starts at $1,099.

M18x R2

The M18x R2 is a minor refresh; it receives an Nvidia GeForce GTX 675M video card option (which isn’t actually new as it’s a rebranded 580M) and up to three storage drives courtesy of the mSATA slot like the M14x.

The M18x starts at $1,999.

M17x R4

The M17x R4 isn’t much of an upgrade over the M17x R3 except that it’s available with the new AMD Radeon 7970M 2GB graphics card. It’s available as a $200 upgrade over the base Nvidia GeForce GT 660M. The 7970M has the specifications to be the fastest mobile graphics card available – at least until Nvidia releases its GTX 680M. The M17x is also available with the GTX 675M like the M18x.

That said the M17x can still be equipped with up to 32GB of RAM, multiple storage drives, a full HD screen, and comes standard with a quad-core Intel Core i7 processor. It starts at $1,499.