M17x R3 Teardown video

Third revision of the 17" Alienware laptop, it included a lot of changes to the second one and there is a huge debate if this machine should or shouldn't be named as m17x R3. Why? Because it is really different form the R2.
No more dual GPU cards option, but it supports ATI 6990m and NVIDIA 580, both top performing cards.
Also it has 4 RAM slots compared with only 2 in the R2, up to 32GB worth of RAM.
With the new revision, the next gen in processors is also supported here, 2nd Generation i7 processors up to the 2820 right now supported. (New bios updated should bring newer cpu support).

Intel HM67 Chipset based Motherboard

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Ports:
(1x) Power/DC-in Jack 
(2x) Hi-Speed USB 2.0 ports
(2x) SuperSpeed USB 3.0/2.0 Combo ports
(1x) eSATA 3Gb/s + USB 2.0 Combo port(with USB charge function support)
(3x) Auto-sensing jacks for Line-out (2 line out; 1x SPDIF/Headphone)
(1x) Microphone Input jack
(1x) RJ-45 (10/100/1Gb IPv6)
(1x) HDMI-1.4 output with Audio
(1x) HDMI-1.3 input with Audio 
(1x) mini-Display Port
(1x) VGA Port (DB-15)
(1x) 9-in-1 Media card reader 

2nd Generations i7 Processors

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  • Intel® Core™ i7 2630QM 2.0GHz (2.8GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)
  • Intel® Core™ i7 2720QM 2.2GHz (3.3GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)
  • Intel® Core™ i7 2820QM 2.3GHz (3.4GHz Turbo Mode, 8MB Cache)

Bios:

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A03: ftp://ftp.dell.com/bios/M17R3A03-W64.exe 
3/2/11
A03: ftp://ftp.dell.com/bios/M17R3A03.exe 
3/2/11
* Added support for B3 PCH
* Updated cpu micro-code
A04: ftp://ftp.dell.com/bios/M17R3A04-W64.exe 
4/7/11
A04: ftp://ftp.dell.com/bios/M17R3A04.exe 
4/7/11
* Disabled CRID so that the PCH revision can be displayed correctly with third party non-CRID aware applications
A07: ftp://ftp.dell.com/bios/M17xR3A07.exe 
8/3/11
* Support 3D function of N12E-GTX2 & N12E-GS
A08: ftp://ftp.dell.com/bios/M17xR3A08.EXE 
8/8/11
* Support new CPUs
Alienware User Support