Rather than leaving customers out in the cold with recently outdated hardware, Alienware is offering free Intel Ivy Bridge processor upgrades for notebook orders placed before last month's M14x, M17x, and M18x refresh. Customers with outstanding orders are being notified via email that their machine is being upgraded to the Ivy Bridge equivalent to the Sandy Bridge processor they originally selected. The upgrade comes at no additional charge and, most importantly, no delay to their original delivery date. According to representatives, the Ivy Bridge upgrade program is exclusive to Alienware and will not apply to other Dell products.

Update: Origin PC just reached out to us to let us know it has also been upgrading all outstanding Sandy Bridge orders to Ivy Bridge, free of charge.

Thanks, Gshocker!