Alienware Notebooks Get Ivy Bridge, Finally

Earlier this month, Dell announced an overhaul of its Alienware M14x, M17x, and M18x gaming laptops, featuring NVIDIA 600 Series GPUs among other impressive specifications. The machines themselves boast backlit keyboards with multiple color zones, “headlights”, and laser-engraved nameplates.

However, the laptops lacked an important feature--namely, options for Ivy Bridge processors, sticking buyers with Sandy Bridge chips only despite starting price tags of $1,099, $1,499, and $1,999 for the M14x, M17x, and M18x, respectively.


Now, the Alienware line has finally caught up with itself by adding Ivy Bridge options to the mix. The M14x and M17x can both be configured with an Intel Core i7-3610QM (3.3GHz), i7-3720QM7 (3.6GHz), or i7-3820QM (3.7GHz). The M18x offers the same, as well as the Core i7-3920XM (3.8GHz) and i7-3920XM (4.1GHz). If you want to stick with Sandy Bridge for some reason, the M14x still has the option of an Intel Core i5-2450M (3.1GHz).

The best part is that the base prices for the laptops haven’t changed with the addition of the Ivy Bridge chips.

Update, 30 Apr 12, 10:45pm: Dell contacted us and asked that we clarify that Ivy Bridge was just made available in the OEM channel today, so it's not as though Alienware dragged its feet with Ivy Bridge. The angle we were taking was simply that the line of notebooks was updated several days ago with certain features, and then was updated again today with new Intel 3rd generation Core processors. However, Dell (correctly) noted that the article was misleading on that point. Dell also said: "For customers who ordered one of these three updated laptops last week and whose orders haven’t shipped yet, we’ll be upgrading their processors from second generation Intel Sandy Bridge processors to a comparably-priced third generation Ivy Bridge processor automatically and at no charge!"