14 DAY TRIAL // When the first specs of the next-generation Alienware M11x gaming notebook made their way to the Web, a large piece of the puzzle was missing as we had no idea about the GPU that Dell wants to pack in its latest creation, but the laptop's manual has recently come forward to help us and revealed that the M11x will be powered by an Nvidia GT 540 GPU.
While the GeForce GT 540 certainly isn't a high-performance GPU, it should be more than enough for the compact M11x and its 11-inch display which sports a resolution of just 1366x768 pixels.
According to Nvidia's specs sheet, the GeForce GT 540 can be paired together with 1GB or 2GB GDDR3 video buffer that works at 900MHz (1800MHz effective), while the 96 CUDA cores are clocked at 1344MHz (677MHz GPU).
Outside of the Nvidia GPU, Alienware's upcoming machine will be powered by an Intel ULV processor based on the Sandy Bride core and users can choose between the 1.4GHz clocked Core i5-2537M, the 1.5GHz Core i7-2617M and the i7-2657M that works at 1.6GHz.
All the CPUs feature dual processing cores and support Turbo Boost as well as HyperThreading and have a TDP of only 17W, which, combined with the 8-cell 63WHr battery should provide enough juice for some prolonged gaming sessions.
The rest of the M11x R3 can be setup to feature up to 8GB of 1333MHz DDR3 memory, various 7200RPM HDD options, ranging in size from 250GB to 750GB, or with a 256GB Samsung P810 SSD as well as with WWAN 3G or LTE/WiMax 4G broadband connectivity.
The M11x R3 will use the same red and black Alienware colorway as its predecessor and is expected to be released sometime this month.
No details regarding pricing are available at this time, but the system won't probably be much more expensive than the current version of the laptop. (via engadget)