C90 with a 8800m GTX

G'day

I'm thinking about getting a C90 laptop but I want to know how 'upgradable' it truelly is. Nivida recently released the 8800M series, but the asus website still says the C90 only supports only up to the 8600GT. So I'm not hopeful, but though I'd ask here before looking into another lappy.

 

Nope, it's MXM-II & 15.4'' so destined to use mid-range video cards. The 9600M GT is probably though.

 

Now, I would not recommend to buy the C90s for its "upgrade-ability"....buy an XPS 1530, has a better videocard...everything is better.

 

I would reocmmend the C90 for its personalization capabilities. Everyone here who owns a C90 seems to have made it their own. My goal for mine was a sub 1500$ rocket capable of taking down much more expensive notebooks and it did that pretty well (see specs in sig). But I was also able to do some mods to it to make it more of my own. I did the popular "vicious mod" with a drill press and some wire mesh. And ordered a custom schticker ( www.schtickers.com I believe) to put on the blank top of the C90. I also always have my external sound card hanging off the side and I make it a point to whip out my sidewinder mouse whenever possible

Again, everyone's C90 reflects their own tastes. Some went for the powerful but expensive 6700 and got the max 3gigs of ram along with a 7200 rpm hard drive for the fastest possible experience. Others got the "lowly" (relative term here) E4500 processor to save a buck or two and to increase the "battery life" a.k.a. the time spent running from one outlet to the next with the computer on. I know some people must have a C90 with the 8500 card if they ordered it from istnc computers because that was the gpu they offered in the C90 or the longest time and still do. But maybe some keep it that way because they don't do heavy gaming?

So yeah, if you want a generic gaming computer there are better options, even for the money since the C90 has now reached it's aging point where it is to be replaced. It used to be the best bang for the buck around. But it is still a fun machine to personalize and enjoy the scream of the turbo engine as it fires up.

 

it does super pi in (2.93ghz conroe)17 seconds and thats all it matters not to mention to nice sharp screen.

 

Yeah it's nice, and different. If you bring that school, you are sure to bring attention while a Dell is like everyone else's

 

Thanks for the replies guys. While the C90 seem's extreamly cool it may not be the best laptop for me; I'm looking for a gaming machine.

Are there any other C90 style customisable laptops ? While the video card is all important to me, I would like the ability to play with it a bit.

 

The best value right now is the gateway with the 8800M GTS. I forgot the model its 168-fx or something like that. Its on the best buy website. If I were you I would wait for it to come back down in price though. It was 1199 but then the price jumped up!

 

MrMark....most, if not all of us, are gamers.

 

Awe man I guess I need to uninstall BF2(2142) TF2, DOW, SH4 and about 30GB of other games.
The c90 is not the absolutely best gaming notebook out there but for price and performance it's real solid in the 15.4" market.

This really isn't a very objective statement, and honestly not really accurate in its facts. While "Better" is a very subjective term, I would certain like to see how you came to that conclusion.

 

Yeah the 8600gt isn't bad..it's just not the best. It's like having a "good" desktop for around a grand compared to the "godlike" desktops for 4000$. You only get what you put into it. I could have gotten a sager 9262 with 2x7950gtx (then the best card) for over 3 grand...or for less than half of that I could've gotten my C90. I still stand by my decision especially since almost 4 grand was out of my budget for going to college with. Now also consider this - a guy I met at college spent over 2 grand on a 15.4" alienware...which performed far worse than my C90. Another guy paid over 3 grand for the 17" alienware with a single 7950gtx. Until it came to playing games at maximum settings my C90 was the victor on every count. My processor was faster (yay turbogear!) my screen was declared to look better, he had 3 gigs of ram but for some reason mine could multitask easier. Mine had fewer problems playing games (he had home premium 32bit like me) and was far better for general use due to the extreme speed of the conroe.

Now if all (and I mean ALL) you plan to do is play games then there *might* be better deals to be had now and there are certainly just plain better laptops out there for more money. But like I said, these C90s absolutely rock in day to day activities as well as doing decent in games. If your budget is under 2 grand I'd say go for it.

 

The only thing that is better than the c90s is the notebooks with 8800M series in them...and even then they are only better at gaming not processing and multitasking. On a normal grade scale of overall performance I give the c90s a B- and the other 8800M series notebooks a A-. The "-" for the 8600M in the c90s and the "-" for the low processing power of mobile cpus in the 8800M series notebooks....mobile cpus are fine for gaming when combined with a 8800M but arent as good as a desktop cpu for raw processing and out of game speed. Even then the desktop cpu adds SOME speed to SOME games. C90S is still the best thing out for me. I just want a gpu upgrade for it (8700M with overclock) at least.

 

uh, there are other 17 in notebooks that take desktop processors so your argument is void.

wtf?

at 1680x1050, the bottleneck for most new games is gpu.

wtf?!?!?!?

how is your 8600gt ddr2 better than 7950gtx?

let see some benchmark, i smell artifical inflation of e peen




If you're looking for advice, i suggest you don't take them all from C90 owners.

 

I never said my gpu was better, I just said that the only way he could actually get better performance than me was to push the graphics up to a point where my 8600 started to stall. At lower resolutions and settings, the 8600 does just fine and since I actually know a thing or two about computers I have been able to optimize my system's drivers and settings for peak performance. He was a bit of a computer noob and didn't know how to do such things so with a bit of knowledge and effort yeah my computer was keeping up with a 7950gtx until things just got too high. No amount of drivers and tweaking will help if it's just beyond the card's abilities.

I also rate "performance" not by numbers and graphs but by how the game plays. I don't need an fps counter to tell me whether or not my frame rates are acceptable. Also keep in mind how I play games - I have the game running, I am on ventrilo, I have music playing in the background and I often have a website or two up that might contain information useful to the game I am playing. I also often have other programs like AIM running too. At lower settings, mine was unaffected by running all of this at once. The alienware guy had a merom processor (his was 7400 I think) and started to bog if he was playing something like BF2142 or TF2. Again, maybe if he had some computer knowledge he would've done better but the fact remained that mine played smoother. Sorry for misleading you.

But also keep in mind that when we did dx10 settings tests I won them all

 

What is wrong with you? My comparison is between the C90S and other notebooks with 8800M gpus with mobile cpus. I made that very clear. Also, I made it clear that SOME games would benefit from the desktop cpu not all.

 

I think for comparisons and the like, we should not be mixing 17" and 15.4 together. The differences between the two sizes make the comparison not really viable.

It would also be nice, if people across the board, would not bring in hammering and empty blanket statement and or things not backed up by something substantial to the discussion.

@hmmm instead of just running in and throwing out some smug comments, why not contribute to the discussion maturely and help people?

 

hmmmmm,

I also said this "mobile cpus are fine for gaming when combined with a 8800M but arent as good as a desktop cpu for raw processing and out of game speed."

This means that the gpu is more important than the cpu. Therefore the bottleneck is the cpu. But also thats only in SOME games.

 

all new games at that resolution is gpu bound

if you ran bioshock on c90 and on the gateway fx, the fx will still beat the c90

name some games out within 2007 that is cpu bound at that resolution

wow, nice job quoting your reply to my post

LOL

tell me what your desktop cpu can do that a t7300 can't do

oh wow, shave 1 sec off bootup is sooo important

the only thing that really improve is if you have quad core for video editing or media encoding.

aka, the 7950gtx > 8600gt

i don't see how his processor is to blame for it being "bogged down"

that has nothing to do with keeping browser open and music. the fault is more likely with him having less ram and its more likely bf2142. that game is a ram hog. there is no way its tf2, which runs on the very efficient source engine.

and what do you mean "bogged down"? lagg in game?

1) because 8600gt is dx 10 compilable and the 7950gtx is dx9 only...
2) what game can you play in dx10 and have smooth enough frame rates for you to turn up the settings?

the 8600gt is too weak to play dx10 games with the effects they enable and still have good (40+) framerates


Sgt. Hollywood, if you read the post, themanwithsauce compared his c90 against a dude with 17 inch notebook.

 

That's not true! I'm using Gentoo Linux and I do a lot of compiling and I can clearly tell that there's a huge difference between a desktop and a mobile cpu!
It's not just seconds, there's hours of compile time differences between those two cpu types (depending on the size of the program, of course).

You could say I'm a minority because I do a lot of compiling and I am using Linux but different people have different needs.
I believe there are other people in this forum who chose the C90S because they were in need of more processing performance than a mobile cpu could deliver.

 

I call 40 FPS "overkill", 30FPS "perfect" and 15 FPS "playable". And you can still run the DX10 effects with an overall quality of "very low" you know.

 

Hmmmmm,

You have proven what I said twice now. You say "new" games are bottlenecked. Dont "new" games count as "some" games? You mention the year 2007. There may or may not be cpu dependent games from 2007 on but what about the games that came before then you know the "some" games I speak of? And sense you want examples, Unreal Tournament 3 has been noted to rely on cpu power as well as Supreme Commander both of which are "new". As far as pre-2007 games you have Oblivion which isnt very cpu dependent in itself. But runs a lot better on the C90S E6700 desktop cpu than with any mobile cpu. The calculations of the nature environment in the game cause that.

In other words, there are examples of both new games and older games where the desktop cpu outperforms mobile cpus.

Also, as far as the gateway beating the c90s in games, what part about "The only thing that is better than the c90s is the notebooks with 8800M series in them...and even then they are only better at gaming not processing and multitasking" didnt you understand?

And again, if you read my entire post you will plainly see that im comparing the C90S with its desktop cpu to notebooks with 8800M gpu with mobile cpus.

There is already enough childish arguing going on in the rest of the internets unending number of forums. Think about what has been posted before you reply to them and stop trying to be an e-smarty pants. Being king of an internet message board does not hold very much weight.

 

I do note that you didnt use the "wtf" approach though so cred for that and I appreciate it.

 

usually, for FPS, you need 60 fps...

at 40fps, you can still spot studdering...

what use is very low quality dx10 when it looks better at high dx9...

 

That's pretty much BS. As nice as 60fps is, I challenge you to be able to tell the difference between a game running at a steady 30fps.

 

I'm aware of that, the comment was meant for all, not you exclusively. I did read the post.

Cheers.



As for frame rate, if your constant frame rate is 30 or above without dropping (or rarely) below you will have fine game play. It's when 30FPS is an average, that gameplay could suffer due to drops. But to really tell what's good you need to look at how the statistic is gathered.

It's all depends on how often, how varied and how far apart the frame rate fluctuates.

But saying "for FPS, you need 60 fps" is just incorrect. It's all about min, max and means.

 

Hmm no, if your monitor is at 60hz, you shouldn't be able to tell the difference from 30 or over. If you have a 120hz CRT monitor, then yes you might need 60 FPS.

At 60FPS, the 8800GTX SLI would be playing Crysis on Medium 1280x800....

And if you don't know yet. DX10 is all about soft particles, dynamic shadows & better options for physics processing.

 

not at 1680x1050 with 4xAA and all at max

yes, i know

there is hardly any improvement with desktop cpu over mobile ones in normal usage. sure, if you do media/video encoding 24/7, you might shave an hour or 2, but that hardly warrants claiming desktop versions to be that much better.

did you read my earlier reply?

wth?

60hz = the lcd refreshes 60 times a sec.

its when you go OVER 60fps on a lcd that you get tearing and such

huh?

how does this make sense

crt can refresh hundreds of times per sec

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3183&p=3

sure those are ultras (OCed gtx), but they're running crysis at 42.2 fps in sli @ 1920 x 1200 (twice the MP of 1280x800) at high quality

don't know where you got the idea that 8800gtx can't run crysis at 60fps a resolution over 1280x800

try hanging out in the desktop forum and maybe you won't make such misjudged statements

soft particles, and dynamic shadows take a lot of gpu power, power that the 8600gt doesn't have to spare

 

hmmm pretty much don't agree with anything your saying.

First of all cod4 is a modern game and yes I do play it at 1680 x 1050 a 2xaa with all max with 30-40 fps. THis is with my 8600 overclocked. I think thats pretty damn good.

Also the cpu makes a big difference in rts game. In company of heroes, universe at war, and world in conflict after a certain overclocking my gpu does nothing to my fps. WHile overclocking myu cpu gives me a nice 5-10 fps boost.

 

thats like saying TF2 and HL2 is new, but they're running on old engines though

WiC is notorious for its dips in fps, i honestly doubt that OCing your gpu doesn't raise the min fps

 

? Steam engine is not old. THey are constantly updating it. They just don't declare brand new versions of it like the unreal engine. Its always being optimized and tweaked. Though I don't know what that has to do with what I said.

At a certain point, no my cpu becomes the bottleneck, thats all I am saying.

 

steam is not an engine, its valves way of distributing of software.

the source engine is pretty old in game terms, 2004, even older than fear

while it is being updated with HDR and such, there is a limit to how much you can do with it

i'm saying, at the native resolution at max settings on most new engines with 4x aa will make the great majority of games become gpu bound instead of cpu

 

Well hmmmm youve made my point 3 times now that SOME games benefit and some dont so ill just assume you agree now.

As far as desktop cpu vs mobile cpu, im open to the possibility that the new extreme mobile cpus might be up to par with a desktop cpu but nothing less than those. However, it would take some convincing.

I dont know whos arguing what about crysis but I know crysis can run at a higher resolution on medium settings at 60fps most of the time. I run it at 1280x1024 on medium (no AA/AF) with vsync on (desktop 8800 GTX). It rarely drops frames save for ice level.

Remember vsync will stop the tearing in games also.

 

hmmmmmm may I ask you what notebook you own? It's obviously not a C90. I'ms till trying to figure out why exactly your justs itting here tearing apart the C90. So it doesn't have ultra high end gpus. The fact remains that the rest of the specs are high enough and the gpu is capable enough to play plenty of games at fluid settings.

Also, I play BF2142 at all high settings (no AA, and no fancy lighting effects) on a high resolution with around 30ish fps fluctuating between 20 and 40fps depending on on screen action. I can play perfectly with those numbers. I can snipe, use rockets, knife, drive vehicles, do it all. If you want to spend more money to get those extra few fps at max settings then be my guess but no one here expects a C90 to be able to run everything at amx settings with ultra fps.

Oh and DX10 looks awesome with an 8600gt. I play hellgate london in DX10 mode with almost everything on high and I get over 20fps no problem. Why you hate the C90 so much I don't know but stop hating on it just because it's not better than brand new $3000+ laptops. It's almost a year old and it's a 15.4". Really, what are you expecting?

 

Wow, what a thread...yep, it's all about staying at or above 30fps ideally. What happened to the OP? lol

 

most games will not

if you look at cpu benchmarks, there minimal difference in normal useage

that was JCMS.

uh, you play crysis on your c90s at that resolution at 60fps...

take a screenshot cause that is hard to believe.

desktop

you people were giving biased info to OP.

20 fps dips for a FPS can be fatal, esp on online frag matches.

1) 20fps is too laggy to be defined as playable...
2) if you look at anandtech's review of hellgate london, you'll see that dx10 and dx 9 have barely any difference, and the graphics are pretty bad compared even to COD4

i'm expecting you not to say that c90 is A++++++++++++ when it clearly has some flaws to the OP. all you did is mention good things about it, embellished some things and hid all the negative things.

 

FPS is matter of opinion, 20FPS is perfectly playable for me. I played UT3 demo at 18. I play WiC at 10.

DX10 won't any direct impact on what you see, except the shadows. It does increases the physics effect though. I like it too.

 

Your opinion is just pure bias. Each individual's own perception of what a good fps is makes them decide what fps is comfortable for them. I'm confused about what we're arguing about.

My point was the 8600 is a good card.

 

i doubt you'll do well against others

you can say that having frame rates over 60fps is opinion, but there is a huge difference between 10-30.

40-60 is ideal

can you list the games where the 8600 can turn on soft shadows and still run smoothly?

and 10 fps doesn't count

you can do a quantitative study (not sure if done) on the effect of fps.

have some ppl play at X fps and others at Y. compare performance.

i have high confidence that the ones with lower fps will do much worse and like a diminishing return graph, there comes a point where increasing fps doesn't increase performance. that point would be the ideal fps in an objective manner

 

Yes but the falt in you argument is the lower fps part. What is high for you maybe low for others or whats low for you can be high for others so the arguement in inherently wrong. Look at jcms, who said 20 is ok for me. 30 is usually my target.

 

yea, so i devised an objective way to determine what a good fps should be

in most gaming sites, the goal is 40-60+, esp for FPS


and if you play at 20 fps, i can almost guarantee you that you will get owned on online fps frag fests. just too laggy to be competitive

 

World in Conflict is a RTS, and the UI is frame rate independant, that's why it is playable a 10. BF2 was the only game I found unplayable under 30.

 

What does being competitive (not that I agree though with your statement) have to do with the regular average player. Most people are trying to get the best quality image with next to the bare minimum tolerable fps for them.

 

Hmmmm,

edited for desktop with crysis at 60fps with single 8800 gtx since his post was about the desktop card.

 

how is UI framerate independent?

the gpu renders the fps of the UI as well as the game going on in the back ground

at 10fps, it will be hard to accurately select the troops/helli/tanks

hard to complete a game in SP if it lags like hell and hard to remain competitive online...

most people i would think would trade image quality for smooth fps.

huh?

 

Maybe you need that much but I just got back from a BF2142 party and I did very well all around. I can get in top 10 (overall on the server with 64 people on it, usually near the very top on my team) after a full round fairly consistently. Some maps I do better on and some I do worse on but overall I am a very good player and I see no issues at all with 20 -30 fps. This might be a bit more of a personal thing but I actually prefer some details turned up a bit and view distance at maximum in BF2142. I feel that I perform better when I can see more detail and I know I perform better when I have a greater view distance. Therefore my scores are actually higher when I am in the 20 -30 fps range than when I am in the 30ish+ fps range.

 

Yes that is why I said next to minimum tolerable fps for them. To each his own.

 

Don't ask me how, I was in the beta and someday an update pop out and said that it was independant, slow dows/lags/stuttering don't affect your mouse & troup selecting through the menu, TA selectiom, reinforcement and stuff. And I assure you the game is playable at 10 FPS.

 

I rly hope there will be an upgrade for the C90 although I am satisfied with the 8600

*fake edit*
thise whole 60 fps stuff is the minimum to be a pro is bullcrap. more fps on your screen doesnt make you aim better or stuff especially when your human eyes only work with ~20 fps. so how does the more fps help you play better when your eyes/brain cant even tell the difference? so you have superhuman or animallike eyes or what?