• IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
• Sound, video and game controllers
• System devices
• Universal Serial Bus controllers

• Bluetooth devices
• BluetoothVirtual
• Human Interface Devices (HID)
• Sound, video and game controllers

Alienware M11x R2 – Internal

By removing the main panel on the base of the M11x we can see the main components. Starting at the top edge of the system we have two memory slots which on our model were populated by 2x 2GB of Samsung DDR3-1333, 8GB is the systems maximum capacity. As with many compact systems these were running at 800MHz due to a limitation of the chipset. Next to the memory is the half height Dell DW1520 mini-PCIe card which is both wireless N and dual band enabled, something few manufacturers provide. Beneath the WLAN is a section for the WWAN (3G) card which is also mini-PCIe based and then we have the hard drive location. On our review sample this was populated with a 256GB Samsung PB22-J based SSD. The firmware used by Dell is VBM25D1Q which is newer than the most recent publically available version for retail Samsung drives. Lower specification mechanical drives are also an option when ordering the system.

There are a couple of options available for the Socket 1156 CPU in the new M11x, the highest specification is the 1.2GHz Core i7-640UM (2.266GHz Turbo) and the second is the 1.066GHz Core i5-520UM (1.866GHz Turbo) which was present in our review sample. This CPU, using the 32nm Arrandale core, runs on a 133MHz Bus and uses a 14x multiplier to achieve its 1866MHz speed. As with other recent processors it is 64-bit capable, runs SSE 4.2 and supports Intel Virtualisation Technology. There are two cores in this CPU with Hyper-Threading and cache levels are set to 2x32KB of L1 Data and Instruction, 2x256KB of L2 and 3MB of L3.

There are TWO GPU’s in the M11x, the first is an integrated (on the CPU) Intel HD based GPU which is a 45nm part with 4 ROPs and 12 shader units and is ideal for standard desktop use as it is a low power part and supports Windows Aero/DirectX 10.

The second GPU, which uses NVIDIA Optimus technology to auto-enable when games or CUDA/OpenCL applications are executed, is the NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M which was also present on the older M11x. The GT335M is built on a 40nm manufacturing process and features 72 Unified Shaders with 8 ROPs. The 335M uses 1GB of DDR3 on a 128-bit memory bus and supports DirectX 10.1, Shader Model 4.1, CUDA, PhysX and Blu-Ray Acceleration.

On the M11x the GT335M is set to 450MHz core, 790MHz memory and 1080MHz Shader.

The final component of note within the M11x is the battery, this Samsung branded model is Li-ion based and has a capacity of 63Wh.