C90S graphics card upgradeability

Will the C90S be able to upgrade to NVIDIA 8800 series, when and if this card comes out for laptops?

 

if the C90s has the cooling power we expected, it should be able to upgrade to NVIDIA 8800. However, dont expect quite operation. Those fans will probably run like jet engines. Well, I am exaggerating. But you get the picture. The NVIDIA website says they are coming out this summer 1 month before.

 

Generally speaking, laptop GPUs are not upgradeable. The C90S might be an exception, but I do not know that. Gophn, Ice-Tea, and a few others might know that answer.

 

That depends on the size of the 8800 MXM card. The 8600GT in the C90s uses the MXM Type II graphics card interface, which means that it can be upgraded to other MXm Type II cards. Whether the 8800 will be offered in an MXM module remains to be seen, as the regular card itself has not been released yet.

You would need to ask Ice-Tea for a full explanation of the MXM technology and what cards would be available for the C90.

 

I know MSI at least plans Type III DX10 cards. But I think the chance of the 8800 ending up on a Type II is rather limited.

Then again, I haven't seen the MXM cavity on the C90. Maybe there's enough room? Dunno.

 

Well I hope it can use the 8800 because from what I hear the 8600GT isn't all that powerful, are there any cards that are better then the 8600GT that will work on the C90S?

 

LEt's wait for the bench mark. I want to upgrade my GFX card to a higher end now cause I can't game with my 7600 no more..

 

Eh? Why not?

 

Well asus has said that there will be 5 upgrades for the graphics card by jan 2008. So I assume they will be the 8800m gs,gtx, ati graphics cards, and maybe this so so called 8700m rumor. It it is definitely gettin something better than the 8600 thats for sure.

 

khanfat: hasnt the Z84J been upgraded to Go7900 before? I swear I saw that on Ice-Tea's site before....

The 8600GT is plenty powerful. It has performance approaching the Go7800. Not too shabby.

I heard about that 5 graphics card thing. I assume one will be a lower powered one, two will be ATI, and probably one will be faster than this. I assume it will be the 8700, as that is the one that seems to be going into the DTRs currently.

 

I assume the 5 cards to be:

Nvidia Geforce go's 8400m, 8600GT and GS

ATI Mobility HD's 2400 and 2600XT

The 8700m would most likely appear in the C80 as there has never been a high en GPU in a 15.4".

 

Well I would agree but I think the cards (all but 1 maybe) will be better then or equivalent in terms of the ati cards to the 8600. I just find it interesting how they say "upgrade" making it seem that they will be better. It makes sense if the barebones comes with 8600 gt they wouldn't come out with upgradeable cards that would be weaker then the 8600 would they? Just my 2 cents.

 

Well you can also think of battery time and heat if your objective is cooler operation and better battery time and you never game, then moving to a less-performance GPU could be considered an upgrade.

Of course, this is not really likely to be the case with C90 users.

 

Yeah, I hope that it will be able to actually upgrade not just switch to lower power cards, if it can't get better then the 8600GT I don't see much of a point to get the C90 instead of the G1S. Or is there something I'm missing?

 

For your reference: partial upgrade guide.

 

Well except you can build a C90S for 1500$ that is more powerfull than the 2000$ G1S...

the C90 can use a E6600 C2D @ 2.4ghz stock and overclock it to 3ghz in the gaming mode. thats a 220$ chip vs the 600-700$ish cost for the 2.2ghz moble version.

 

a 8400M and GS would not make much sense (if not to say nothing at all) cuz you can already buy a "low-end" gpu for this book: the 8500M even tho i have not seen any official announcement you can configure it and excaliberpc already lists it:

http://www.excaliberpc.com/ASUS_ASU_NB_VIDEO_CARD_ONLY_FOR/90-C1CJ90-HXBN00Z/partinfo-id-579487.html

so i guess at least 2 will be ATI and the other should be NV refreshs and cards more powerful than the GT

albatron already manufactures MXM II cards as well (8500M 8600M)

"Albatron is debuting its second generation MXM module for small form factor systems. This incredible marvel is a VGA module smaller than the palm of your hand at 73mm x 78mm and boasts NVIDIA’s latest 8 series graphics technologies including Direct X10 and Shader Model 4.0 support. This module fits onto an MXM connector on a Mainboard and can lie parallel to the board – it is especially designed for tight fits in small cases."

http://www.technic3d.com/index.php?site=news_comments&newsid=2177 (mainly in german, just use googletranslation)
http://www.technic3d.com/news/image...-MXM-with-heat-spreader_20070528233358141.jpg

not sure about them selling to endusers...

 

Well i guess we will just have to wait and see.

 

WELL..i wouldn'y have ATI cards in C90..
as ATI cards are well known for its power drain

 

I read that one since it's posted but did the user able to turn on the computerand play with the card? or there is issue with driver and bios recognition?

 

Even if it was more powerful? The C90 is not for gaming on the go, it's a smaller DTR. Batter life is not that important.

 

Id only get ATI if they finaly have scaling options in there drivers. They do with the 2900XT on the desktop platform. Its the first card in YEARS to have this. Thus why almost everybody on the widescreengamingforum.com sticks to nvidia so we can control how non widescreen content is displayed.

 

That is actually a good reason.

 

Does anyone have a link to the chart (or satement) that shows Asus has a plan for future updates for the c90?

 

It was stated by milestonepc when they met with Asus in one of the very first c90 threads. Also various interviews with asus about the c90 specifically some from the computex show when asked about the gpu, Asus said they would have gpu upgrades.

 

I'm not seeing a 8700M GT+ card here. They are too big and too hot to fit in a C90. They REQUIRE MXM3, and the C90 is MXM2.

 

I agree that the high end cards are unlikely to be MXMII (otherwise what's the point of MXMIII?), but the next gen performance cards (e.g. 9600M) might very well be.

 

^^agree with that.

 

Well, I actually attempted an MXM upgrade on my C90, check my other thread to see.

 

So when a MXM III does come out, would it be on a 17 incher or a 15.4 inch??

 

They are normally on a 17" notebook, due to increase in heat output, and power requirements. However, there are a few exceptions, where MXM III cards have been fitted into smaller 15.4" chassis. Have a look at mxm-upgrade.com for more information.

 

That's true for desktop, not laptop.

The HD2600 is in a 65nm process so it consumes way less than the 8600GT wich is on 80nm (or 90nm?).

For the 5 cards. There is the DDR2 8600GT.

Some resellers have the 8500GT for ETA September but I doubt it since the 8400M GT is as strong as the desktop 8500GT.

There is probably an HD 2600 coming soon, seeing asus uploaded ATI's M76 driver earlier in august in the C90's download section.

Asus said a 8800M if they can make it fit in MXM II. Except if nvidia use 45 or 65nm process, this is unlikely since the 8700M GT (wich is an overclocked 8600M GT by the way) is only MXM III & IV

 

8800m is going to be 65 nm.

 

From what I just gathered from JCMS' post, that's bad then right Forerunner? At least, we wont be seeing one on the C90? Or am I misreading something here?

 

I think MXM type III might actually fit into this case.

 

No thats a good thing. That means the card has been shrunk (die shrink) and thus you make it more efficient and more powerful because you can fit more in less basically. So since the 8800 is on a die shrink it has a higher probability of being a mxmII. I am saying its a possibility but what people are forgetting about the 8700 is that its still on a 80nm and is honestly an overclocked 8600 with minimal gains with the bus width. I personally believe there will be an 8800.

 

No, it won't as far as I know..

 

Small world Ice-Tea, no what I mean is if you look inside the C90S its not a MXM bay like most other notebooks. There is just a slot and a lot of room, not to mention the kind of power that this notebook takes. Thus it wouldn't matter what size the actual card is you fit in there (within reason).

 

i feel like we're screwed buying the C90S sometimes.

Being Taiwanese and all i really like our brand. BUT **** MAN, everytime i do some research i get more and more ppl saying that 8600 GT will be one of the more powerful cards in the C90S. That would truly put most of us in a "wtf" situation. I checked the the 2600 XT on the tomshardware list and it doesnt seem to be much more powerful then the ddr 3 of the 8600.

Either im going to lean towards gettin a 17 incher ( which i really dont have much budget for) or Im going to wait it out until next summer and see how this barebone of Asus rolls out.

Of course, if the 8800 comes out im snatching the C90S right away. But like i said. Seems like a long shot.

I am being too pessimistic arent i???

 

Indeed, infact, last i checked-ati mobile cards are noted generaly-atleast in the past, more power efficeant n gforces. Though-i seem to also recall nv's put a good dent in the difference...

And well... in desktops... well... its a desktop!...

 

Yeah either mostly everyone has a pessimistic or optimistic (like me) about the gpu upgrades. My thing is I like my c90 and if the upgrades are not really upgrades, I will be just done with Asus. I can forgive but I won't forget.

 

If there is no upgrade (actual upgrade, not more lower end cards) for the C90, no more Asus for me. I like my C90S, but I didn't buy it for a 8600M GT. I bought the C90S for the desktop Core 2 Duo and a more powerful GPU.

 

The 9600/HD 3600 are our best bet IMHO. According to ATI, the 2600XT would be for 17''+. For 3dmark scores, the 2600XT is between the GDDR3 8600 and the 8700M GT.

 

well i know its a 17 incher but the z84j started out with a 7300 and ended up with a 7700 so i think asus will honor its promise of upgrades, i would be happy to find a 9600gt with ddr3 memory by this time next year

 

The HP 8510P is a 15.4" notebook with with an ATI 2600. That plus Asus having the drivers for the 2600 on their site are pretty good indicators that an MxM type II model of the 2600 should work in the c90. Its still up for debate if the 2600 would be a significant step up from the 8600 GT DDR2, but inital indications are positive.

The 3dmark06 scores for the 2600 (non XT version) were pretty comparable to the 8600 from what I recall reading (I can't recall if the 8600 numbers were from a DDR2 or GDDR3 card) while the XT scores were quite a bit higher (+800) than the 8600 GT. (As always the 3DMark scores should not be given too much weight).

There should be some gaming scores for the 2600 and 2600 XT listed in the 8600 vs 2600 thread pretty soon:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=150512&page=25

Also to be taken into consideration (as far as the c90 is concerned) in CPU dependent games the c90 (should) out preform the non-desktop processor systems out currently.

 

hmmmm so a game like Starcraft 2 is heavily based on the CPU right?

 

Starcraft 2 probably wont be really taxing on anything. A game like supreme commander is very taxing with hundreds of units on the field especially in 3 x 3. In supreme commander your cpu becomes a bottleneck at one point rather than the gpu.

 

oh god, i wish Starcraft 2 at least gave us a release date, or some kind of a spec for the requirments.

I would totally buy the C90S or the G1S right now.


I finally starting to appreciate why ppl are debating over which one is better. It funny though, when i configured my C90 and G1 on xoptic.com they came out to be the same price. I guess im wasting to much money on the C90.