Full benchmark results for C90S with E7500!!!

First of all I would like to say hats off to colombodk for making this upgrade possible and ken at gentech for converting the altered bios into iso and jaybee for test driving this upgrade before myself. Here is the thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=351612

Having installed the E7500 successfully I proceeded to carry out all the tests I could think of to see what it could do. Here are my results and I hope you agree they are downright brilliant.

Advantages: Much cooler(solid 40C idle/64/65C stressed)
Much faster (duh)
Longer battery

Disadvantages: multiplier won't downclock on battery only the fsb (has to be forced down using CystalCPUID or possibly RMclock)

1.) Max idle temps. Mind you when plugged in the processor will drop multi to 6x and 1.6ghz as it should when not used. But when unplugged the multi stays at 11x while still dropping the fsb to 175mhz, oddly as a result the speed is just under 2 ghz idling which means a battery time of 90 mins. Once this is fixed I think the battery will last about 2 hours!.

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/137/idletempsu.png

2.) Next I ran orthos stress test for over 5 mins to see what the max temps were at stock (2.93ghz)

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/7002/stockclocksstresstemps.png

3.) Next I found the maximum stable OC which was 3.264ghz. Any higher than this and the computer would freeze once the OC is applied which leads me to believe its the stock voltage limitation of 1.263V. I can imagine the max OC will vary from C90 to C90 and also upon what ram configuration one has. Anyways here is a screenshot after 45 minutes stress test showing temps and all. I shall at some point run it for 6 hours+ when I have time. It never passed 63C!!

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/4485/overclockedstresstemps.png

4.) Wprime score at stock speed - 27.264 seconds. Wprime wrongly thinks the processor is running at 6x multi but it was running at full 11x.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/7905/wprimestockscore.png

5.) Wprime with CPU overclocked - 24.844 seconds.

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/6464/wprimeoc32634.png

6.) 3D mark 06 with CPU and GPU at stock - 3583

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/4001/3dmark06stockclocks.png

7.) 3D mark 06 with CPU @ 3.263.4ghz and GPU @ 506/1372/488(max for card) - 4496

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/258/3dmark06scoreoccpuandgp.png

Needless to say my DDR2 card overclocks poorly compared with many others. I should think scores over 5500 with DDR2 and scores over 6500 are possible with DDR3 variants of the 8600M GT and this processor. I think this proves that the C90S is far from dead and still a great performer and will be around for a while yet.

Thanks for reading and if you have a C90S my advice is - UPGRADE!!!
If there are any other bench's or info that is wanted, post away.

 

Awesome, just awesome. Now for a new GPU, and we can be saved.

 

3.264ghz freezes up after 1 hour 45 minutes orthos. Lowering to 3.256ghz (296x4) --stable 6 hours orthos. For a higher overclock I suggest running with 3 gigs of ram or 2 gigs. When i had the e6600 installed I could get up to 2.86 ghz stable with 3 but with 4 it would freeze at anything over 2.8ghz. Therefore I reckon 3.333ghz is achievable I shall test it with 2 gigs some other day to see if I am on right track. Temps fluctuate between 55C and 65C as fans don't stay at same speed during the stress test.

It is so sweet hollywood. I dunno about $$ but it cost me just 125 quid Lets hope we can bung a new ati 4xxx series card in there as well!

 

Yeah, I'm waiting for a better GPU option soon. I've got a plate of high grade electronics copper waiting to be utilized. Just really don't want to give any more business to the Nvidia guys after they pretty much ripped so many customers off with their defective line. Don't know if I'll swap out my 6700 just yet, as the weak link in my system is the flawed 8600.

 

True thats why I intend to hold onto my DDR2 card till something better hits the market. I think this CPU is worth it as it gives less heat and potentially longer battery which is a great plus. As for performance the gap is of course smaller between your e6700 and the e7500 compared with my old e6600, but I think the e7500 is comparable with the e6850 in terms of performance and is so cheap.

Less ram doesn't bring higher OC so definitely a VID limitation. Still 3.25 ghz suffices!

 

Hey guys!
I finally finished benching my new configuration (E7500, 9600M GT, 3GB) on the C90 (takes quite a while to test OC configs on the GPU, since its only overclockable via BIOS flash, not possible thru RivaTuner or other software in Win).
So, anyway, stable OC configs are at: 297.45x11=3272Mgz for CPU and 620/1010/1670 for the GPU (stocks at 500/800/1250). I tested both with Prime95 and 3DMark06, Furmark and 3DMark Vantage for several hours for stability and it worked out!

Here are the scores at maximum OC (all run on default settings):

3DMark03: 17242
3DMark05: 11436
PCMark05: 7338
3DMark06: 5987-6020 (several tests run)
PCMark Vantage: 4016
3DMark Vantage: 2366

All in all, ive had about a 25-50% performance increase to my old config (E6600, 8600M GT DDR2) and im veeeeeeery happy ))

PS: Sorry i cant supply any screens, performed the benches couple of weeks ago. But if anyone insists, i can repeat some benches again with screenies

Cheers!

 

oh, by the way....
i was wondering: maybe its actually better to use a E7400 or E7300 CPU for overclocking?!?! think about it: with stocks lower than 2,93Ghz the Gaming and/or OC Mode in TurboGear is unlocked, thus enabling a higher VCore to be used for enhanced OC capability.
Whats your opinion on that? Maybe anyone checked this out already?

 

Well higher vcore will be there but then you can run into a FSB limit easier. Its hard to say what would work better. I would imagine its a mixed bag.

 

I don't think so as with a lower multiplier the limit will become the fsb, most likely below 3.25ghz. If you want to try a new processor at some some point, try the upcoming Q7500; 2.6ghz, 800mhz fsb, 2mb lvl2 cache, and tdp of only 65W, 13x multiplier. Now that might outperform a E7500 if its OCable!
It is interesting to see you can reach very slightly higher than me on the fsb with your E7500 I hit the wall at anything higher than 296mhz

 

i pretty much doubt that the FSB limit will be the problem, at least not on my C90, since i used to overclock my old E6600 up to 3Ghz, thus 9x333Mhz without any problems whatsoever. Now, tho, I can only go up to 297 FSB, so I suspect its the CPU itself. I dunno, I was just playing mind games here
Anyway, youre totally right king of interns, if at some point I'll upgrade again, it will definitely be a quadcore, providing someone out there would be nice enough to update the microcode of the C90 Bios once more ;-)
Unbelievable, isnt it? How much more power u can squeak outta the good ol' C90? I remember my very first 3DMark06 Score being around 3000 (with the standard packaged Nvidia 101.xx drivers), now i cracked 6000, thus doubling the score. You gotta love it

 

Wow you could hit 3ghz stable with your e6600! with 2or 3gb the most I could do orthos stable was 2.86ghz 3ghz was possible but not at all stable. With 4gb of ram that dropped tho to about 2.8ghz orthos stable. I hope also that either asus release a new bios release or someone does modify the microcode once again when an upgrade presents itself... now if only I had something better than this 8600, a 9650M GT maybe mm

edit: jaybee I just did some tests with RMclock forcing multi to first 10x then 9x to imitate the slower e6600 and e7300 but still had lockups above 296mhz fsb. I did however managed to force the multi on battery down to 6x which has increased battery to 1 hour.56 minutes. If you have a go at OCing with lower multi's let us know the results.

 

hmmmm, if its isnt the cpu itself nor the FSB, what else could it be....? and yeah i was pretty lucky with my e6600, but it was only stable if i went to overclock-mode first and then increased the FSB via clockgen, which was totally fine with me, hehe.
how can u POSSIBLY get almost 2 full hours out of ur battery? ! i use crystalCPUID to push down the multi to 6x, lower the Vcore to 1.1V and switch to powersaving mode in turbogear which brings the cpu down to 1050Mhz. but still, most i could get was around 1:27-1:30h.Hm, its probably XP vs. Vista in addition to you using an SSD as supposed to a normal HDD... but would that really make such a big difference?

ha! i finally got over the 297 barrier! pretty weird thing actually: i increased the PCIE setting in clockgen by a few Mhz and viola, i could overclock the cpu further! unfortunately, nothing ive tried so far was totally prime-stable. most i could get out was around 45min. prime at 3.4Ghz. So, basically, its the GPU connection limiting the OC....? cant make sense out of that....

PS: good luck finding a 9650M GT....so far ive encountered only one singapore based site offering those for some seeerious money....9600M GTs tho are easy to find on ebay and other sources. or you just hafta wait for the new mobility radeons 4xxx to be available i guess

 

good job mate +rep to ya! I upped the Pcie frequency from 103 to 112 and from there I can up the fsb to 318mhz in one go. That is 3504ghz and it seems orthos stable with temps only at 65C so far!! As soon as I overclock the card though at same time to 506/1372/488 the computer freezes for 10 secs and puts the card down to 266/200 until I re-boot!

Seems like success lies in finding the highest safe pcie frequency. I believe 112mhz is 100% safe. Zepto sells 9650s for $400 but that is way too much for something that might not even work

edit: it seems fiddling with the P-cie frequency can yield profits but its a 2 sided affair. Putting it up to 112(maybe lower but not yet tested) will get you pretty much stable 3.5 ghz but your GPU will barely be stable at stock clocks at that Pcie clock speed, so not ideal for gaming. On the other hand reducing the Pcie speed to 100 will yield higher stable GPU OCs ( for me 525/1425/497) but CPU will have to stay at 2.93 ghz. Still its pretty much a win win!

 

I just did more tests and found by underclocking the PCI-E bus to 93mhz (any lower it would crash) I could overclock to 570/1525/492 completely stable! The CPU however is dead stable at 2.93ghz only any higher and again the computer will crash. Have a go at this and see if you can get performance gains.

When down clocking pci-e do it in increments so 96mhz then down to 93mhz.

 

hmmm, very interesting indeed, now it makes more sense! so its either ocing the cpu OR gpu, one puts a limit onto the other....
as it looks like, i think ill stay put with my stable settings then. thing is, i undervolted my gpu in 3D-mode a bit (1.15V to 1V) to keep it cooler and i know for sure that i cant overclock it much further with this setting (thats why i also reached slightly lower settings that nightwalker with his 9600M GT), thus no stable pcie-ocing possible! plus, im pretty happy with 3.27ghz already ^^ at least now we know whats up with that fsb barrier ;-)
thanks for the rep

whats ur standard pcie setting, anyway? i think mine went from 100 up to 103 since swapping the gpu. funny, huh? ^^

 

nah its always been 103 stock. Turbogear would clock it auto to 112 on overclocking setting with the e6600. I wish I still had 3Dmark6 then I could run some benches. Yeah I am getting higher clocks but then losing 10% of the speed on the pci-e could be a worse deal. I can imagine 3.25ghz/506/1372/488 will score very closely to 2.93ghz/570/1525/492 + 10% slower pci-e in the best circumstances at most 5000 points. As far as temp is concerned after all the modding ive done it won't go above 85C

I should think you can get close to 7000 points with the superior CPU if you didn't undervolt. I think another user on here got over 6250 points with his ddr3 8600MGT and e6700 even..!

 

what??? 6250 with e6700 and 8600 ddr3? u gotta show me that link, otherwise i wont believe that, no way in hell even nightwalker with his higher oc'ed 9600M GT got a max of around 6400 as far as i remember. i cant believe that 8600 ddr3 and 9600 ddr3 would only be 200 points apart...

i doubt that i would be able to reach 7000, not even close. i maxxed out both cpu and gpu in terms of overclocking, i wouldnt know which other angle to take at this....well theres still some low percentage gain in the memory timings with memset, maybe swapping to a high-perf. (but high-cost) SSD, but otherwise....

 

The guy who did klok99ah did major modifications to the cooling like myself and had himself one hell of a OCing card!
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=3448929#post3448929

I think with the more recent drivers he bumped his score from 5800 to 6140 points. Plus he pushed the shader clock to 1900mhz which is very high! Have you tried pushing the shaders independently as high as they go? Also do cooling modifications and stick volts back to stock.

 

Thanks to all who have given the C90 a new breath of life.

Can I use Turbo Gear to get an E7500 from 2.93Ghz to 3.2Ghz or do I have to use setfsb?

Thanks in advance

 

nope, u would have to use programs like SetFsb or ClockGen, since there is some kind of internal limit in the BIOS as to the specified maximum CPU setting. basically, the cpu would have to be at 2.93Ghz or lower in the overclock mode of turbogear for it to be available. same with the gaming mode, if the cpu reaches 2.93Ghz in standard mode already, u cant activate it. No big deal tho, just use clockgen / setfsb and u can oc this little beast easily to 3.25-3.3 Ghz at standard VCore (and if u arent that intend to oc ur gpu, then u can push it even further by clocking up the pcie, check the last posts by king of interns)

@king of interns
whoa, is what he says is true and those scores are correct, his specs must be waaaaaaay off the chart! thats just insane....i had a very good reason to undervolt my GPU core, cuz my 8600m gt fried exactly ONE day AFTER i ordered the 9600M GT, although my temps were fine and the OC i used was perfectly inside comparable specs from other people!next time i might not get that lucky, so im playing it safe for now ;-) still, even undervolted i can oc by 25%! thats already good enough for my taste, doesnt always have to get insane..... *thinking about those 1.9Ghz shaders.....*

PS: yup, pushed core, mem and shaders as far as they would at this voltage

 

That's a pretty nice upgrade =P

 

I think I am gonna leave the pcie alone for now. The general consensus is to not change it as it can mess things up like the HDD/SSD and fry the graphics card! Still if it is so dangerous why would turbogear take it up to 112mhz on standard OCmode on slower processors...maybe that was killing peoples cards.

Don't forget if you upgrade to this processor get RMclock or a similiar program and lock the CPU to run at 6x multiplier (1050mhz) on battery from startup. Speedstep works fine on AC but on battery without RMclock the multi will stay fixed at 11x and almost 2ghz. I sometimes had random crashes because of this on battery but never since forcing it to 6x.

Jaybee that old card of yours must have been jealous or something dying like that just after you buy an upgrade I just found a 9600M GT for 135 pounds here in UK I may be joining the 9xxxM club soon enough.

 

exaaactly what i was thinking@jealous ;-) that card, cost me two thirds of its selling price on ebay :-D still got rid of it pretty fast, those mxm cards are wanted, even with defects...

go for it, we still accept applications for membership :-D

 

Lol. Actually I spoke to zepto UK today and their prices are pretty reasonable. 225 pounds including tax and delivery for a 9650M GT and 160 for the 9600M GT. Brand new. Really considering getting the better card! Then OC it to death..well not literally

I am amazed you could sell a fried DDR2 8600M GT! Who would want that and why

 

good question ^^ still got 45 euros for it ;-)
looking forward to ur bench scores!

 

Me too when I have the cash to get it!

 

Cores's temperatures are pretty low.
Actually my E7500 is running all the day with fsb=291,6MHz => core speed=3200MHz.

What a shame for ASUS who did not provide an official updated bios.

edit : C90S can't boot at fsb=291 with ClockGen set at startup of Visa.

@+

 

There it is my result with a e6700( OC 2.93) and a 8600M GT ( OC 550/500)

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/3470/c90s3dmark06.jpg

Did you make with everything optional?

 

Not quite sure what you are asking me here?

 

I asking if you run 3dmark06 with optimal settings, for example with last drivers, performance nvidia settings, with a drefraged disk, no temporay files, classic theme etc.. With the performance profile, because i had 5048 on the xp, ithink that you must get more points

 

ah ha now I get you Back then when I had the C90S my 8600M GT only allowed 506mhz on the core and 488mhz on the memory vs your 550/500. Makes a big difference. The CPU barely makes a difference in 3Dmark06, the GPU is the most important aspect in it and my 8600M GT in the C90S sucked big time! The one in my C90P can hit 575/543 but I still dislike it lol it is a poor card considering asus replaced my DDR3 8600M GT with it. Oh well talking to asus's EU service director next week to get one back

 

What wifi N card are you guys using on your c90s? I tried a 4965 and only got 65mbps. I was going to try the 5100? Thanks,Rick

 

Hi,

My C90S came with a Atheros AR5008X, wifi 802.11 a,b,g and draft n 2.4GHz.
Wifi n 2.4GHz works perfectly with my DGL-4500, at 2.4GHz.

But last WiFi Atheros AR9280 seems to be better, with both 2.4 and 5GHz wifi n frequencies.
Just see here.

@+

 

My first post here... Probably not the right thread either...

I swapped out my e6600 for an e7500 and i must say it runs almost too cool, and way faster. Unfortunately, it refuses to run on battery even with RMClock, unless I force it down before switching to battery. Also even then when in standby I can not restore power unless it's plugged in. I can OC to speed up fans, but if I can't have battery use, the e7500 is history.

Also I use the Intel 4965 wifi, and never had a single issue. In fact it works at noticeably better range and speed (full 300mbps) than the Atheros N card in my friends Acer (although I don't know exactly which he is using...).

 

Welcome to NBR Sol Vector!

Have you set RMclock to start automatically with windows so it will auto force your E7500 down to 6x multi when you run off battery. If I remember correctly what happens is on battery the fsb downclocks but the multi says at 11x making the CPU unstable on the lower battery mode CPU vcore. Rmclock will fix that problem for you taking it down to 6x on battery. However yes you are correct starting on battery can cause the system to crash sometimes however it is less likely to do so once RMclock is properly configured as your multi will be forced down where it should be as soon as you have booted into windows.

The best option is to boot with power plugged in wait until you are booted into windows and RMclock has started then unplug power and use on battery. This might not suit everyone but is the only fail-safe way to use the E7500 on battery.

The 4965 wifi card is excellent. I use one in my C90P and have also never had an issue. Haven't used it on a N network yet though.

 

Thanks for the welcome!

Yes, I found your guide on how to set it up somewhere on here... but even with windows booted up on ac power, the machine will crash before it can auto set the multiplier I have to manually set it up every time I go onto battery power. So It never even loads windows at all on battery. (Not an option for someone who uses it on the go several times a week without ac power...) I figured it'd be fine if I set the multiplier down then put it in standby as opposed to shutting it off, but it will not resume from standby unless on ac power. If I could fix that I wouldn't care about being able to start on battery since I rarely turn it completely off anyway. Don't think its relavent but I use XP pro instead of Vista/7 due to lower system use in background.

As for benchmarks, I noticed one odd issue with this cpu. When running Resident Evil 5's benchmark on the same settings as my e6600, they get 10fps less than before...