Alienware Refreshes Three of Their Laptops; the M14x, M17x, and M18x

Dell has announced that it will be updating three of the Alienware lineup of laptop models, and although they look similar to their predecessors, there are some pretty significant changes under the hoods of the M14x, M17x, and M18x. So what exactly has changed? Well, they will now have an mSATA slot for an SSD and Bluetooth 4.0 will come standard on every model. Additionally, the refreshed laptops will have Klipsch speakers with a dedicated Creative Sound Blaster chip on the board as well as THX TruStudio software. Most importantly, however, is the addition of some serious gaming enhancements with Nvidia’s new GeForce 600 and AMD’s Radeon HD 7000 series GPUs.



Let’s take a look at the specific improvements to each laptop.

Alienware M14X

The 14-inch Alienware M14x R2 will be equipped with a 28nm GeForce GT 650M GPU, up to 2GB of dedicated GDDR5 memory, 16GB of RAM, an optional slot-loading Blu-ray drive, and an mSATA port for an SSD. Enthusiasts looking for quick booting and a responsive machine will find the 64GB boot drive with 500GB of magnetic storage as an attractive option. If you’re looking for an even more powerful alternative, Alienware has indicated that users can set up a 512GB RAID 0 array of SSD for some serious speed.

Alienware M17X & M18X

The 18.4-inch Alienware M18x R2 and 17.3-inch M17x R4 will be your desktop replacement laptops. The M17x will now feature the 28nm Nvidia GeForce GTX 660M and 2GB of dedicated GDDR5. This will be upgradable to a GTX 675M or a Radeon HD 7970M, with up to 32GB of RAM, in addition to a wide array of storage options using its dual hard drive and mSATA slots. The M17x comes standard with a 1600 x 900 screen; however, the 1080p, 120Hz WLED 3D-ready screen will be available at an additional cost.

The M18x has virtually the same specifications as its brethren, though customers can purchase two graphics cards (either two GeForce GTX 675M in SLI at launch or two Radeon HD 7970M in CrossFire) to power its 1080p display.

Both the M18x and M17x will come equipped with a 3×3 MIMO wireless cards for more reliable Wi-Fi connectivity.

All three power-hungry ultrabooks will be available April 29th, just a couple of short weeks away. Rumor has it Dell will slap in Ivy Bridge processors after Intel announces them next week, but until then Dell is simply saying they’ll come with the current Sandy Bridge processors.

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