14 DAY TRIAL // Those of you searching for a gaming notebook with an interest in Alienware systems should be happy to know that the company has now dropped the prices for the Nvidia GeForce GTX 580M upgrade in both their M17x R3 or M18x offerings.
Before this price cuts were operated, the GeForce GTX 580M came as a $300 (218 EUR) upgrade over the AMD Radeon HD 6990M, both cards running neck and neck in most benchmarks according to AnandTech.
Now however, the price difference between the two was reduced to just $75 (54.5 EUR), which could justify the move to a GTX 580M if you need CUDA or PhysX support.
Announced at the end of June, the GTX 580M is a mobile version of the GF104/114 core that was used by Nvidia for the desktop GTX 460/560 graphics cards and it packs 384 streaming processors.
The main clock of the GPU is set at 620MHz (so the shader cores operate at 1240MHz), and this also includes a 256-bit memory bus which is paired with 2GB of GDDR5 memory operating at an effective 3GHz.
Apart from the improved clock speeds, the main advantage that the GTX 580M holds over its predecessor, the GTX 485M, is the support for Nvidia's Optimus technology.
In both the Alienware M17x R3 or M18x gaming notebooks, Nvidia's GTX 580M can be seconded by Intel quad-core processors based on the Sandy Bridge architecture, up to 32GB of RAM memory and by a maximum of two storage drives (either SSD or HDD).
A number of display options are available sporting up to Full HD resolutions and 3D-support, and users also get the usual eSATA and USB 3.0 connectivity as well as HDMI and mini-DisplayPort video outputs and a 2.1 speaker system.
The GTX 580M price cut is also available for M18x SLI configurations, but sadly no other notebook vendors have announced similar discounts for Nvidia's flagship mobile GPU.
