Asus C90 feedback?

From what I understand it's a notebook without certain elements? Do you purchase the processor and so on from Asus? Does it come with a dedicated Graphics card and MXM? If so what type of MXM? I'm curious about this notebook and really like the idea. I'm just looking for feedback. I see it has a Blu Ray Drive does it burn playable BD Disks or just Data ones? Does the HDMI port support 1080p? Is is HDMI 1.3?

 

okey ill try to answer some.

if you buy the barebone alone youll need to buy the cpu, gpu, ram, wifi card, and hard drive and youll get a standrd dvd/cd writer. (most resellers will package the barebone with the gpu already installed though)

some resellers will let you choose parts from their invetories and the they'll install all components for you.

gpu choices are 8600gt (MXM II format) with either 512mb gddr2 or 256mb gddr3.

Bluray and/or hddvd drives will be availabe later on as an upgrade (the notebook case is desiganed to be easily taken apart)

havent tried the hdmi yet so i dont know.

 

Awesome! Thanks for the reply. So it's basically a rediculously easy notebook to customize and upgrade? As far as the MXM II goes, it's doubtful that the 8800m will fit huh? I know we don't know what MXM type it is yet, but if you had to guess?

 

best notebook to upgrade i've seen ~ .... 8800m wont be out for this, im 90% sure o.o the heat is like .... meh... anyways, the down side of this laptop is ram incompability, and thats pretty much it. here are some posts you have to read before you buy, well i read all of them before i bought, and asked questions:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=144187
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=142447
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=170318
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=140562
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=141567

Read them PAGE TO PAGE, some are 70 pages long, READ THEM if you consider buying one of these, yes i finished reading them, all the c90 manual, and bought a c90 which is on delivery, if you want a result of c90 with zalman laptop cooler, ill have a review out after i get it ~ ... cheers

 

Wow thats perfect, thanks for taking the time to throw me these links I appreciate it.

 

8800m is possible. Thats why I got this laptop. Its supposed to get an 8800m.

 

Like forerunner said youll find tons of reaon why it could be and a ton more why it wont be...

I for one would rather get a 9600gt with gddr3 soemtime next year (but that would only be if the C series takes off and more notebooks are made)

 

Yeah that would be a tough one. I will probably stick it out till the 9600s too. By then either get the 8800 for less or the 9600. I won't get a replacement until the 8600 can't play the games at 1280 x 1024 or similar res with high settings fairly steady. Its not letting me down so far .

 

a 8800 would just melt my c90s... (believe it or not, the protective sticker on the metal plate on the Turbo Engine melted a bit, so I had to remove it).

a 9600 is my goal too

BTW forerunner, I read in an (old) topic that you had an overheating gpu at first. What did you do to get it back to 65???

 

9600 mobile? By next year? Ah man...I hate making decisions. I would like a laptop with a GPU that has MXM like this one for obviously the option to upgrade. I'm tossed up. Do any of you know if the HDMI port is 1.3 and supports 1080p?

 

Next year meaning next summer. Long wait...

 

Yeah, I'm still tossed up between notebooks. I hate it lol. Too many things I want that no notebook has all of them.

 

The current GPU is fine for HD, though I'd recommend going to laptopvideo2go.com and getting the latest 163.71 drivers since that series finally support Purevideo again (very important for HD video). The HDMI works great on my 1080p monitor (both audio and video). And a Core 2 Duo is almost a must for anything 720p and up (pretty sure this notebook will support smooth 1440p playback).

The GPU however is, in my opinion underpowered in terms of gaming, but I won't mind the 9600M upgrade.

 

That's because of the DDR2. The GDDR3 is okay, but if cooling was better, the GDDR3 could be as good as the desktop 8600GT with overclock

The 8600GT max resolution is 2560 x 1600 so 1440p is possible, but I doubt the DDR2 version will cut it through. 720p is laggy for me with gpu underclocked to 275/200

 

I have Nvidia purevideo installed and use media player classic, no lag for 720p and I downloaded a 1080p demo that ran lag free. You can't underclock with any of the Purevideo enabled drivers on the C90S, the clock is locked. Thus I doubt your using purevideo enabled drivers, there is lag while watching 720p with the Asus default video driver 101.17.

 

a C2D should be able to play 1080p with no problems with no help from the video card at all, its a cpu task totally, and while things like pure video can help offload the cpu by letting the gpu help with the task, the cpu should be able to do it fin on its own.

I have alot of both 720p and 1080p videos and they run fine with no special decoders like pure video, just raw cpu power. My desktop can skip a beat on 1080p with only a 2.8ghz single core opteron and it has a 7800gtx.

 

Very nice thanks for the info!

 

Thats what we are here for.

 

Thanks I appreciate everyone taking their time to answer my questions. Everyone on this forum has been of great help. I seem to learn something new everyday on here alone. There's so much information all over this site I love it!

 

o btw... C91 should be out by the end of the year? so if you can wait consider that... its an upgraded C90

and the G92 is being released oct 29th... so hopefully a mobile version will be available soon after...
http://www.techpowerup.com/?41713

 

c91 wouldn't bet on it. It fell of the map. Yeah we are expecting a moble 8800 sometime next month or so.

 

FWIW, I fed the HDMI output to my VP50 (Video Processor) and set the resolution to 720P (but could have set it to anything that my processor could support) and Audio/Video passed to my processor and to each of my 4 displays (I use an HDMI splitter from Gefen) None of my devices are 1.3 spec'd so I cannot confirm that, but it is suppose to be 1.3 from the specs on the laptop from asus.

 

Awesome thanks for the reply! I'm lookinbg forward to the 8800m I'm thinking I'll buy right when it comes out in a notebook.

 

prob be at least $300... i gotta save for it haha

 

Haha i'm sure it will be worth it. Ah man..I can't wait.

 

comparetively, 8800 will have a higher score then 9600, on all the desktop reviews with temp testings, 8800 's temp is much higher then 8600... unless the clock speed is low -_-'' and from the 8600's heat solution, I don't think asus will make a 8800 for it? but prob with a 8700m tho .... and also, nvidia ain't putting a lot of effort into the 8 series, since on some chinese review site, 9 series testing boards are out already -_- ... but estimate will come out during the first or second season next year ....

still c90s is really good, i just hoped they would have a better chipset, well , might just get one if they put in 975x lol, and sell my c90 on e-bay

 

I don't know man. I haven't selected a laptop yet. I'm waiting for the 8800m which has a set release date as of yesterday for Oct 29th. So I'll be making up my mind soon enough.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=168147

 

I'm looking for something else sorry. I want some specs that aren't included in the C90S. If they become available for a later upgrade then it's possible I'll get one. Until then it doesn't have what I want.