*Official ASUS W90Vp Owners' Lounge*

i agree. if you have an extra $200-$400 dollars, don't buy this laptop. get a sager with close specs.

 

I recommend you be cautious of what you decide on and do your research on any of these laptops before you purchase.

There are those that had the M17x, and actually shipped it back and paid the $500 or so restocking fee because they were that disappointed with it.

Not sure if it has happened with the M98NU, but I wouldnt be surprised as the the only way you would really put it at its full potential is to shell out a nice chunk of change for the QX9300 and settle for 2.53Ghz as there is no OC capability, and also drop in and SSD... which could also cost you a limb or two. That can be a dealbreaker for many right there.

Dont put the W90 out of the fight just yet...
From what I see, those that are having problems with the 2d crashes are doing 1 of 2 things.

1.) They are using Vista and are trying to post to this site. There has only been one other person that I know of that mentioned another site that had caused the crash. Seems almost like NBR is the only mentioned site where the crash seems to take place. I know its the only place that I experienced the WSOD. I have literally spent 7 hours of my work day browsing on the W90 and it only crashed when I was typing up a long drawn out post on this site. Maybe just avoid being on this site too long. Of course this shouldnt have to happen, and Asus needs to fix it, but just a thought. I dont think anyone has had the problem in Win7, but i could be wrong.

2.) They ran the burn in test and it crashed. Only seems to happen on the W90, but there are those that successfully ran the test on it and it passed.

If you are talking bang for buck... W90 is a no brainer, but i can understand those that dont want to use workarounds to make the thing work. But you pass judgement too soon. This rig should not be condemned to the point that it has here based on browsing capabilities. The system was built for gaming and multimedia performance... and it definitely excels there.

The mobile driver support for ATI as a whole sucks. No way around it. OEMs have exclusive rights to the drivers for their systems to avoid having to troubleshoot problems they are not familiar with because they were put out by someone else. Asus included. Single card notebooks dont really have this problem as much since you could mod the driver easily for one card. Its the crossfire config that has our hands tied. The Master/Master setup at least gives you the chance to use a pretty good driver with the 9.4 and possibly give you the chance to work out a mod from later releases... again, something that shouldnt have to be done, but not much else can be done there.

Just compare the performance of the W90 to the M17x, M98NU, and any other comparable rigs... I guarantee it holds its own if not winning the race. Take a look at the competitions benches, and then the W90's and then look at the price difference between the systems. Also keep in mind that thos running the benches are not those that just take the system out of the box and expect it to demolish all foes because that paid so much for it... They are twekaing the h3ll out of their systems as well to get them to where they are... thats why thier threads have so many pages for the systems and they just came out within a few months.

Dont count the W90 out just yet... its definitely not out of the fight. Just my opinion.

 

I yet have to see proper QX9300 + 280m GTX benches. alienware section is a joke. bunch of small kids with rich parents. lolz. I wish johnkss could get his hands on one of those. To this date his 9262 is ... well the fastest laptop out there. I m not sure about the w90 quality but if someone spends $3-4k on his laptop, I m sure another $300-400 is nothing to him so price isnt really on asus side anymore. I love the OC options and still remember that 20k with 4ghz qx9300. lolz

 

I have his 9262... So your saying i have the fastest laptop?
Could be yours for a VERY Good price.

 

I'm SO TORN! Everything about the W90 makes me want to own it except the bad driver support and the fact that the cards are 512mb not 1gb

Does anyone think that the 512MB of the 4870's will not be enough for games ~3 years into the future? I plan on using this laptop for at least 3 - 4 years as I cant imagine spending $2400 on a new computer every 1-2 years like most of you do

Honestly that's the only thing holding me back. The bad driver support really sucks but the W90 still beats any single gpu solution out there by far (even the 280m has a hard time getting more than 25fps in crysis high settings on 1920-1200, let alone very high..) and compared to a comparably equipped 5797 the W90 only costs about $300 more so it's a no brainer at least for me.. however, I worry that the single 280m will be equivalent in the near future because it has 1gb vram vs 512mb 4870's, does the amount of Vram only restrict things like texture quality and AA? if so then to hell with it; that's no big deal to me, I am perfectly happy with no aa and medium textures as long as I can max everything else.

So... like I said, I'm torn! I don't know what to get anymore I currently use a 1.83Ghz core duo w/ x1400 radeon in a dell e1505 and I'm going insane because I've had this piece of crap for about 4 years now and I definitely need a new laptop

Thank you all for your inputs!

 

Well I am not using the modded driver right now , and everything is stock except a clean install vista , but it's runs flawlessly , tried almost all the games i have , all ran at extreme settings + AA/AF and still no lag.

 

The problem to chose a laptop is like this...:

Clevo m980nu - This one is out from the race for now... No cpu overlock (no unlocked multipliers option on bios)... Cold have better design(i dont like that Brutal Gloss paint and rear "logos", i do like the lightning do...But it has the best cooling system os the the 3 laptops and 3 HD Space and one 9400m for "long life" battery ...

Asus W90 - DDR2, wold best if ddr3 (i know real world different is lesse then a banana ), the 4870 512mb gddr3 are more like Alienware M17 4850 512mb gddr3 and it wold be mutch beter if the asus wold have 4870 1gb gddr5...Only 2 HD option... But still, It has the the best chipset for overlock (4 ghz on one qx9300 will be had to beat, and i sow alreddy some qx9300 hit 3.7 3.6 on this baby)...

Alienware m17x - it's a 17" not a 18.4 (not real 16:9, with I like more true panoramic) , only 2 HD option, no 5 speakes and no subwoofer... Verry Good overclock options (in bios FSB and multi) , Good cooling also, IMO best design (i love the FX lights), slim power-brick (not for me that makes any difference) nd one 9400m also for "long life" battery....

So now the speculation part , If Alienware lunches the m17x with the Ati 4870 with 1gb gddr5 it wold trash the performance off all the above rigs, is clevo lunches a bios with overclock options it old sell much better, is the Asus w90 lunch a version with TRUE trial-channel DDR3, Ati 4870 1gb gddr5, and ATI Lunch better drivers (this will no be lunched or apen) then the w90 wold be the winner....

btw between this 3 woes got the best...

sond...

cooling...

CPU overclockability...

life battery....

Performance(in games not 3dmak)...

Build quality...

Portability...

 

Asus doesn't support Laptops that has interchangeable parts. so the w90 getting new 4870 ddr5 is out of the question. the Clevo m980nu seems to be the best buy IMO. i love the M17x design, but it's just too expensive. Clevo m980nu will continue to get upgradable parts.

 

Same here with stock drivers, only with a CPU OC at 2.72ghz. Was just running FC2 at 1920x1080 all ultra 2xAA and, I swear, it runs smoother than my Quadfire desktop. FO3 runs flawlessly too. What games are people seeing issues with the stock drivers on? I would like to see the 9.6 drivers work as it gives great gains in Crysis however...

I do think the 512mb will become a limit sooner than you'd think. I already think I'm seeing an issue in Age of Conan with everything maxed: I can't enable AA at all without FPS plummeting from 45-50 FPS to 14-17 FPS whereas I can go to 4x on my desktop and still keep 55-65 FPS.

Regarding the M17x, I was considering selling my w90vp, but keep thinking what's the point. I'd lose $1000 and have essentially the same real-world performance.

 

have you tried crysis? there is a lot of screen break when running at 1920x1080. i have to have Vsync on in order to play game smoothly. otherwise the game play looks choppy. even though it's running at 30-40 FPS.

 

the m17 has 1gb 4850 crossfire. not 512mb.

 

Seems to run ok for me. If by screen breaking, you mean tearing, I'd don't see any. I do run it at 1680x1050 at mostly enthusiast settings, no AA...
I do see some stuttering, but this is the same as on my desktop.

If we had 9.6 working, they would give Crysis a nice boost. I can play at 2560x1600 all enthusiast (still no AA) on my desktop with them.

 

man it must just be my dam laptop that is RMA right now.

 

The 4870 with GDDR5 doesnt exist so u all stop dreaming about that. It was just a pure marketing on their side. same happened with 3870s and we all know now that they suck. Ati is good with hype, but never delivers the goods.

 

Fastest laptop to this date is the Alienware M17x at least synthetic benchmark wise. From what I've seen lately, the W90 is still winning some tests, namely in newer games.

As for GTX 280M + QX9300 benches, they're around in the AW section, just gotta look.

 

I would love the w90 but I wouldn't want to go threw all the stuff everyone is having. and after using nvidia. so far I really like them. I still like ati but I will make my choice if I see that they have a lot of choices for the sli like ati has for crossfire.

 

Only thing to not like about nVidia honestly is (was) their pricing. I know it's typical of a company that is dominating the respective market, but boy they gone Intel on us. If it weren't for AMD, we'd probably be paying close to $4000 for notebooks that would normally go around for $2500, thanks to Intel and nVidia.

I just wish that AMD would come out with competent x64 hardware so we wouldn't have to be paying $1000 to purchase a brand new QX9300 or a high end i7 975. Wouldn't mind seeing some Radeon cores running as CPUs if that's what it takes

 

A1 owner and am extremely pleased with it. Occasional lockups that happen are due to not waking up from sleep. Pretty trivial issue. Gaming has been nothing but rock solid with no OC, stock everything.

There have been some bad apples no doubt, but find a manufacturer that doesn't. It's the risk you take with this stuff. Also keep in mind, you are more likely to see someone come to NBR to complain and seek assistance if they are having problems than to see someone just drop in and report everything is fine. Certainly satisfied users don't call tech support to report no problems.
No regrets at all whatsoever on purchasing the W90.

 

I know what you mean about the intel cpu prices and I'm glad nvidia dropped there price as well. I guess but I haven't seen amd release something to even challenge intel's core 2. I have read recent reports about amd focusing and having the best overclocking cpu but they need to improve the cpu first.

 

If you would learn to search you would see that there are proper benchmarks done.

I'm definately not a kid with rich parents, i happened to have worked damn hard to be able to afford my toys

This was never proven to be real. Beside 3dmark06 is not the be all end all of benchmarking anymore. Vantage is where it counts now. Can the w90 hit 12k gpu test? no but the M17x can, was hit just the other day. My personal best of 11609 still beat the current w90 high.

 

I think Nvidia will always have better GPU performance. Nvidia usually works flawless with every game. Ati, doesn't work well with Nvidia games. I didn't know that the M17x gpu hit 12k. that is quite impressive. If i didn't buy my w90 yet, i would ave paid the extra $600 for the M17x.

 

I'm using Windows 7 and CrossFire isn't working. There's a yellow exclamation mark in Device Manager under the second "ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4870". In details it says "Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43)". There's no CrossFire option in CCC. Also I get a BSOD when it tries to install driver for the nonworking adapter. Is this a hardware error?

 

yup it was done by mandrake his vantage is 12002 on the gpu. his 06 score is 166?0 with a x9100. kcissem is close to hitting 17 but 3dmark06 is having problems with his quad, gtx, and sli. i'll be getting a quad as well and see what's up if quadzilla doesn't fix it before me.

there are more benchmarks as well. i'll gather them up when I have the time.

re5 I think is 65 maxed at 8aa I believe for the 280m @1920*1200.

 

double post

 

How hard is it to swap out CPUs?

I have the Core 2 Duo T9600 CPU and was thinking of putting in a Quad Core once the prices drop.

Are there huge gains to be had with the quad core?

 

Well, I decided to email xoticpc today about them still listing the W90VP-A1 and they responded shortly after and said that Asus was no longer offering the model W90...not sure I want to buy any model # of them anymore if they aren't selling and planning on supporting them.

*Not sure if that was already mentioned, don't want to sift through 900 pages.

 

That's the reason why I didn't buy it and I had my sights set on it. I was concerned about future supportability.

I wouldn't buy it at all. I have the ASUS G50v-a1 and it's nice and I like their warranty so I was disappointed in hearing they stopped producing the W90.

 

dazman it should be very easy to do.

 

Yeah, I got my hopes up as well. Especially after reading rave reviews for it in magizines and online. Then I started to research it and saw some of the issues and now it's been discontinued...unfortunate. I love the look of it too.

Oh well, I pre-ordered the G71GX-A1 with a P9700 2.8ghz C2D. It looks nice, not as cool as the W90s, but hopefully it is more stable and can perform close to it with games...plus its Nvidia, so better support!

 

Do ASUS W90 owners troll the AW boards too? I am curious to know if the folks with W90s jump over there waving their johnsons around? Sorry K, not that your post is over the top or anything, however it just seems that a good amount of people spend more time in here talking about how much better other laptops are than they talk about any of the good the W90 can do.

 

W90 users unite!!! alien nerds are attacking here!!! unite!!

 

Actually in most of the newer games (Battleforge, Arma 2, Prototype, Street Fighter 4, etc.) , ATi cards are performing better than their nVidia rivals, so the assertion that nVidia will always have better performance is just laughable. Same for the reverse. It depends on the game period, which is why nVidia has the TWIMTBP program and AMD has something similar. How much you wanna bet that the first batch of games that support DX11 will perform better on ATi cards in DX11, 10 and 9 not because of the cards' potential, but because the game code would have AMD's fingerprints all over it?

 

have you played Prototype with the w90? i bet you can't max out the graphics without lag. for a matter of fact, i bet you can't even use medium settings for prototype on the w90 without lag. i bet the M17x can play it no problem. Prototype is not even graphic demanding. And the w90 has problems with it. it will be the same with newer games. I'm going to test every new game with the w90. my friend that has the m17x will to. so far, he has me beat on every game, except crysis warhead. if only the w90 could get new drivers.

 

the reason why prototype is bad is becasue you need 1gb of vram. the w90 doesn't have this.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/prototype-performance-benchmark,2350.html

here's the graph maxed. the ones with 512mb getts crashed.

i can also max out prototype perfectly fine with my single 9800m gtx because of the 1gb of vram stocked
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/prototype-performance-benchmark,2350-8.html

 

well i only had to respond to the guy that i responded to as it was nagging me about some of things he said. However i have nothing against the w90 i believe it is a good system i ordered it myself before cancelling and going with the M17x.

Also to answer your question yes some from here do troll the aw boards, but as i said only reason i posted was to respond to a post i felt had no factual basis to it at all. Normally i would have left it alone and i even tried to but it nagged me so i gave in to temptation

 

I'll let you know by thursday hopefully And yeah, try some new games and compare. You might want to update drivers for both systems to be fair (especially for the W90, as you mentioned anyways).

 

why do you hate on alienware onwers. really it seems childish. i saw you said somethings that serious was uncalled for.

 

are you sure? so, why is it that my m1730 with 8800gtx sli can max it out no problem? i'll get a lag here and there, but with the w90 i lag every time i run. maybe it's because my laptop was bad. i'll install again if i ever get my laptop back.

 

so you have both notebooks with you right now. we can do a test and see what's up if that's the case.

edit nvm i jumpped the gun

 

also what driver are you using let see what's up beucause i never got a lag in the whole game playing stocked and i only have one gpu.

 

sold it to get the alienware m17x, but decided to buy the w90 at the last minute. i got a friend who has one with the 512 9800m gt. when i get my laptop back i'll have hm and i run some test.

 

Maxes out on my desktop with ease and my desktop uses dual 512mb 4850's with the 9.5's installed.

If its messing up for you its the game install or the drivers I would think.

 

oh ok i see. what res did you use? let clear up some stuff. i think mazda maybe have a little driver issue. i read that acticle and just thought it was 512mb cards. i guess i should of done more research. thanks rep

 

(talking about Prototype) Have you played it on your W90 vic? What about GTA IV? Also, what are your thoughts on the future of the w90 in regards to support from Asus? Drivers?

I want to buy it before it gets sold out on newegg, I have the cash now but I'm seriously debating with myself whether it's worth it or not because..

on the one hand we have:

- 18.4'' screen (awesome, bigger IS better!)
- Almost 600mhz overclock on a quad core cpu... that's 2.4 GHZ extra for anything that utilizes all four cores! It truly does adds up and make a monster of a difference. believe me.)
- Warranty & Damage protection plus Accidental Damage protection.. are you joking? this cant be beat, plus I hear Asus doesn't make you wait forever to get your stuff back

on the other hand we have:

- Old drivers that are possibly never going to be updated (such a waste)
- 512 mb cards. I truly believe this is the clincher that will make the laptop have less performance in games than the single 280m w/ 1gb in no more than a year or two, which really sucks. Don't say "well there aren't a lot of games that use 1gb vram" because I don't care. I WANT to play GTA IV maxed, I WANT to play Prototype maxed, if I'm spending 2400 on a laptop it better at least max out any game today, and have good performance for the ones tomorrow, for at LEAST a couple years.
- Inability to upgrade the cards in the future is another big deal to me. I've read all over this thread that you cant ever upgrade the cards. If someone were to tell me for sure that it was in fact possible I would head over to Newegg this very moment and buy it happily.


I honestly think I'm just going to get the np9280 and be done with it all.. 17'' 1920x1200 is nice, wish it was 18.4 though.. , core i7 is ungodly fast, upgradeable gpu, and best of all no need to OC since the BASE i7 920 is already faster than the qx9300 and hell, if I need a notebook to take notes in class I'll get a $300 netbook or just use my current dell e1505 way undervolted.

What do you guys think? Also, regarding the np9280 the only complaint I've heard was the questionable cooling for the 130w i7 .. any thought's on this? Don't forget to address the rest!

lol. thanks for all your help guys, I'm learning!

 

hey max why didn't you include the m17x just wondering. but i would get the np9850 if you don't like alienware.

but i understand most of your belief but don't except your laptop to max out games max 3 years and i think that's pushing it.

 

I have not run prototype or GTA4 on the W90 yet, but have both on my desktop and the W90 actually is slightly more powerfull than my desktop in the gpu department.

The desktop has more cpu power though.

Prototype runs perfectly all maxed out and I feel very confident that it will on the W90 also, I guess I have to take the time to install it and test. I see no reason it wont work unless its a driver issue.

GTA4 is quite frankly a HORRIBLE port, it brings even the highest tier desktops to its knees, and it requires ginormous amounts of VRAM to let you crank up the options (without overriding it) but the W90 should play it fine as it has a quad core and you pretty much NEEED a quad for that game.

Its not very gpu intensive, just gpu ram intensive. I cant max it out on my desktop but I find that between maxed out and medium settings it looks the same anyways.

Overclock that quad and you will be good to go for GTA4.

Some of the questions:

Driver support, I dont expect any future driver support from Asus, though they may just pop up with a new release down the road somwhere. This is normal most notebooks dont get regular driver updates and it seems its just as hard for them to make drivers for it as it is us

The modded 9.4's are good for now, and no significant changes in 9.5 or 9.6 (well Crysis boost would be nice) I admit by the time a year or so passes new drivers may be important, lets hope by then we know how to make new drivers for it or Asus gives us some.

Its not like the Sager or Alienware units are goinng to have new driver releases just that people know how to mod them easier.

1GB of VRAM would have been very nice, and GTA4 is the first game that you can clearly see it is a benifit, though that is a horrible port. I cant say I have played any other game that required more than the 512mb of ram, including my desktop that uses dual 4850's. It has maxed out any game I have played.

Personally I would get the W90 now as its the better value per dollar and then get a newer laptop sooner (like 2 years) rather than spend more for a unit that maybe ever so slightly better and have to keep it longer as a recourse for spending more (like 3 years) I know that in 2 years even a medium/high unit will out perform even the fastest unit we have now.

There are other reasons behind my choice as well though. I like the W90 looks more than any of the other units (except the keyboard on the M17X I like that, though its not as professional as the W90), Asus has the best Warranty, exactly 2 years so its covered for the whole period I want to keep it, and I have the 1 year accident coverage, and the really good overclocking. The Sager 9850 is locked w/ no overclocking and the m17x is no overclocking as high as the w90 despite its unlocked bios.

The 9850 still maybe has hope for OC when they find the PLL and try to software overclock but I dont have my hopes up.

I game on my machine very little and I like to play older games that dont even require a lot of power, I really am liking this machine for the 6gb of ram the big screen, nice speakers, and fast cpu for doing my photoshop, listening to music, watching movies.

When you factor in all aspects of what you can/will do with your laptop I think the W90 manages to out do the competition by a good margin.

 

reason why i didn't get the w90 is because i was afraid of sending it in. that's why i didn't buy it. but it seems like it's a good notebook.

 

I'm not expecting 3 years, I'd be very happy with 1 1/2 or 2

Oh and I don't want the m17x because it just looks completely ridiculous, my family would just laugh at me if they saw me at a desk with that monstrosity of a "laptop" lol, It looks like it was made for 5 year olds; red glowy lights all over it, alien heads.. seriously? I want a multipurpose performance laptop that I can take anywhere and not be embarrassed to own.

nty lol

No offense to anyone that owns it, if you've got the um... balls? lol

 

haha, yeah thats how I felt with my Asus G50V with the side lights, after a week I turned them off.

I did not like the M17X at all in looks at first, but it grew on me, and I actually really like the lights and stuff now for like you said personal use, but infront of my company owner at a meeting I would much rather show him my W90 than the M17X.

Still props from me to Dell for giving the M17X a full keyboard, while the bigger 18" 9850 & W90 have a truncated number pad :/ I dont do any real excell work on my laptop currently but I would like too, and cant work on those truncated pads very well.

 

Thanks for answering all my questions Vic!

Seems you've successfully swooned me over to the W90 yet again lol, I'll wait till next friday to buy one, hopefully they'll still have them in stock at newegg

I'll go through the limit breaker guide and post some benchmarks, hopefully it'll have a good screen and no 2D issues.. (not likely)

Thanks again

Cheers