Some actual USEFUL C90 info (example build)

Since all we can do is speculate battery life, and heat, ect ect on the C90 vs say the ever popular G1S and G2S, and I am tired of all the threads about it that have no information in them.

I decided to do somthing constructive. Here is an example build and the cost of what you can do with the C90. This setup will have you above a G1S/G2S in pure stats fairly easy with a 512mb video card vs the 256, a faster and more powerfull cpu, plus all the other C90 extras (better webcam, upgradablity ect)

Maybe this will help the less computer savy in knowing what to get, and for those of you who know about computer parts but never crunched the numbers it makes it easy to compare to the G1S/G2S in a price/performance scenario.



Some notes to take here:

I did all the parts from just one place except the system, this was to reduce shiping cost also newegg is a great etailor. The only flaw was they didn't have any of the higher capacity 7200 drives (100gb max) I opted for the 160gb 5400 here, its only slightly slower than a 7200 but MUCH cheaper and better on the battery/heat.

The setup includes NO operating system, I dont like how asus gives you a OEM type OS id rather get retail so you can have both the x86 and x64 installs. If you get it thru asus your forced to get Vista Ultimate for x64 and it can only be used on your notebook this is a major wasit of your money. If you get retail you can use it on all your systems. I recomend getting an upgrade disk its much cheaper than a full version, even cheaper if your a student or a teacher (~70$)

This is PC25400 ram vs PC25300, it runs the same 667mhz speed stock, but its been tested at a higher speed and passed, given the nature of the C90 I have a strong feeling there will be a way to overclock the ram, this would be a good ram to get since you know it has some overclocking potential.

Finaly I choose the barebone from a trusted seller that is active here on our forum, but I have found it for less than 800$ in other shops. So if your brave enough to buy from lesser known places you can cut 200$~ off this price and have a really high end system for about 1200$

 

Hey Vicious, what is that website you got there and where did you find that for less than $800?

 

is that NEWEGG?
but NEWEGG doesn't sell C90s?

 

Its two sites, top one is newegg that I used for the individual parts. Bottom one is gentech. For the sub 800$ sellers I just used google. I always check pricegrabber aswell but havnt done so yet.

Im sure more etailors will carry it once its actually released. Even the Egg might carry some sort of non-customized version of it.

My only rant about the whole thing is they really need to do a C91 type refresh with the santa rose chipset. But hey for 1400$ or less I am in no position to complane.

I dont care for santa rosa for the 800mhz fsb, thats not a big deal, its the support for the 45nm cpus that counts. They have more power clock per clock and use less power and produce less heat.

You know they will be expensive tho and the C90 is all about price/performance ratio's so for the small loss of no santa rosa you gain alot instead.

It will be a good year or two before the 45nm cpus are cheap like the current C2D's and probably atleast 2 years before DDR3 memory is cheap enough to buy and on the same level as DDR2 in the performance catagory. You can sit around and wait but there will always be new tech around the corner so for what you can buy now. I think this is the best deal.

 

You forgot about the OS. The G1s comes with Windows Vista Home Premium and if you add that to the C90s the differance gets a good bit smaller.

 

The only problem with 800 dollar price you may have found will be that it will not have a Video card. which will cost $124-165 (8500 256) $182-230 (8600GT 512) so you are back at $1000 price.

The cost of C90S will be around atleast 1500 if you add the following.
RAM, HDD, CPU, Wifi, and OS.

The only benefit is that it might allow a better upgrade path.
I guess if I were to look at G1... then I might as well look at apple's new macbook. LED LCD, 8600GT and Santa rosa.

 

I didnt forget the OS its cleary noted if you read the whole thing that I left it out on purpose and why.

 

Hmm maybe the gpu is not there, I didnt take the time to look.

But that above price includes ram, hdd, cpu, wifi, just not the OS (wich I got for 70$ on another site with free shiping) But I also exaggerated the shiping of 40$ it wouldnt be that much.

You can get a full system sub 1500$ very realisticly. Even if you push 1600$ its still cheaper and more powerfull than a G1S.

Macs are a diffrent story all together, and from what little I know about them they are never cheap.

edit: oh I want to correct myself really quick too. I keep calling the 45nm version of this if it were to come out "santa rosa" but thats the moble version, I do belive it would be "beer lake" instead the desktop version.

 

You are comparing "apple" to orange. Not everyone wants a Macbook, especially for those who are buying the C90 for gaming.

You can get a barebone with GPU from BTOtech for $979. You can customize it with E6600, 100GB 7200RPM HD, and 2GB of ram from newegg (a lot cheaper than buying from the reseller) for under $1500. I doubt Apple is going to let you have those specs for under $2000. They are charging $175 for one extra gig of ram. Upgrading 120GB 5400RPM HD to 160GB 5400RPM HD cost $75.

 

I think he was right about the no gpu from the sellers I found, there description is rather hard to follow so I think thats the case.

Gentech or BTOtech are your best bet.

I'll go with Gentech because Ken here has been so awsome as to grace us with all his help and feedback he earned my business. Plus he will most probably be one of the first one to give us a detailed report on the C90

 

Are you guys getting the Arctic Silver Paste? Does standard notebooks come with that silver paste? (E.g Asus G1, HP DV 9000t etc etc. You get the picture)

 

Not standard, its extra most places you order from. 3-5$ usually.

I think I still have some from my last desktop I built. But I'll order some new its 3$ from gentech I belive. AS5 is good stuff.

Other thermal compounds are fine too, we are talking less than 1c diffrence from cheap stock stuff to AS5 in most cases (except stuff they use on north bridge and stuff like that, usually its a cheap TIM stuff and you can get a 3degree drop from AS5 but becarefull since its conductive using it on mobo chips.)

 

Oh and BTW, is there a HUGE or noticeable difference between 5,400rpm and 7,200.9? If so, how much is there?

 

Cool, thanks a lot Vicious. So does the AS5 come with all ensemble notebooks or is it more like a high-end product used more on fast gaming desktops?

 

Thats what I have been researching alot myself, the answer is yes and no.

Looks like a good brand 160gb+ 5400 is only 3-4mb/s slower than a 7200 like 39mbs vs 42mb/s but your talking about 100$ for a 160gb 5400, vs 109$ for a 100gb 7200. So stick with the large 5400 drives.

That WD Scorpio I plan to get gets a 4.7 on the vista performance test, thats a really high score. I also have a great relationship with WD drives vs other brands so I'll stick with them.

If you only want/need 100gb and dont mind the premium pick up a hitachi or seagate 7200 drive, the benchmarks will be abit higher but real life performance will be little to none. Still the HDD will be the slowest part of the system so if you want every ounce of power then its a nesessary evil.


As for the AS5 on the notebooks I dont know, places like gentech and BTOtech custom build them for you so they add the AS5 to the cpu in the process. I think prebuilt ones just come with stock thermal compound. Like I said its nothing to worry about.

Those of us who insist we have AS5 on our rigs are usually highly overclocking cpus for benchmarks and trying to get some records. You will never put a notebook cpu thru the same kind of tourture.

Im going to talk everything over with my wife over the next few days and hopfully put my order in for a C90 I decided I want it more than the G2S, my budget alone justifies it. Once I get it all together I'll benchmark and review the holy hell out of it. I'll include detailed hdd test and give instructions on how to run them so other users on the forum can post there results up aswell, among us I know we will have 7200rpm users and we can get our own data layed out rather than rely on somtimes misleading things floating around the net.

C90 users should also beat the pants off the G' users vista compatibility scores and 3dmark scores It will be good fun to start up a little benchmark thread here in the Asus section.

 

Just abit, I would estimate maybe 1 second faster loading a 15 second map at max. Don't let prices fool you. You always have to pay a premium for whats the top dog on the market.

I'll keep looking around and see if I can refind some of the data I used to get that conclusion and link it.

In reality I am just waiting for SSD to become affordable that will be the BIG upgrade for hard drive speeds. We are talking 2x faster than a 7200rpm drive, 10x the life, and 1/2 the energy . I was going to put one in the tv card bay on a G2S-A1 not sure if I will find a spot for it in the C90 or not (but they wont be affordable for atleast a year anyways)

 

Here is a great resource and I'll add more as I find it:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/storage25.html?modelx=33&model1=425&model2=833&chart=141

Toms Hardware is always really accurate as you can see by choosing diffrent benchmarks the 160gb 5400 is always right next to the 100gb 7200. The 160gb 7200 is dominating here tho, but I bet the price for one of those is insane.

Its worth noting they dont have the newer 160gb WD on there, I think it would be abit faster personally than the model I had to choose for comparison.

edit: aha! here we go.

MSRP for the seagate there is 250$ (told you it would be pricy^^)

but here is another newer benchmark to show how a 5400 can keep up.

here is the 250gb WD 5400, its 2nd place right at the toes of the 7200 160gb seagate. I mean barly behind it.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/06..._to_notebooks/page15.html#write_transfer_rate

300$ MSRP for the WD but its brand new and for 50$ more your getting 90GB of storage more. I say thats enough info to conclude that the 160gb 5400 WD is about the same speed as the 100gb 7200 Seagate for less money.

edit2: Hunting around I am able to find the 250gb WD for 210$ in some places. I may just spring the extra 100$ for one if I can get it at that price.

Seagate 170$ is the best price for the Seagate 7200 160gb but its backordered. Avg price 190ish
The WD definitly wins in price/performance if you want to go high end.

 

This thread has failed to point out a relatively important factor considering the fact that the C90 may indeed be configured to a far more powerful status over the G1S: that the C90 also will drain its battery inherently faster. I tried to find a reference showing the differences of power consumption between Merom and Conroe but couldn't. Then you have to factor in the power consumed by all those fans.

Regardless, Conroe is still faster than Merom and on top of that, you can buy a higher clocked CPU than you would be able to afford with a Merom. There is no doubt that the C90 would be the best bang for the buck and on top of that, can easily become the most powerful laptop (even potentially surpassing 17" models).

I also like the C90's fingerprint reader and I think they should be standardized on all laptops by now.

 

Whats wrong with the MBP? Put Boot camp on it and its like any other machine. The price isnt to bad at fifteen hundred, less than the G1S

 

Weird. I gave myself the 2GB of Corsair RAM, the Seagate 100GB 7200RPM hard drive, the E6600, and asked for full installation, all of this just from GenTechPC, and the price was still under $1500. lol. GenTechPC's prices are very close to NewEgg's, cool enough.

Sure, the only thing I didn't throw in was the wireless card, but unless you have a router that supports the 4965 card, you are barely taking advantage of the speed. Not to mention, you can always buy it aftermarket later.

EDIT: In fact, I even threw in the wireless card, and the total came to $1500.35. Without it, it's $1451.35. That includes ground shipping which is $23.35. How about that? And you forego the hassle of having everything shipped separately, when GenTechPC can install the hardware and software for you for no extra cost. This beats the first post in this thread, because not only do you have dual channel memory instead of a single stick, but you also get a nice boost of hard drive speed (which really helps with games) for a lower price than what was quoted with GenTechPC and NewEgg together.

And actually, 5300 and 5400 are the exact same speed, just rounded differently. Check this out: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=126930 . The different between 5400 and 7200, though, is much larger: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=41219. You're buying a desktop replacement that already doesn't have en exponential battery life, so I say max out all the performance that you can. Perhaps use the extra cash to buy another laptop cooling pad to help it say cool.

 

Not quite my friend:

First of all gentech does have good prices, infact im sure you can see me praise them in more than one post. However it was still cheaper to get it from newegg. Alot cheaper??? no not really but every bit counts, and certian parts of what I would be ordering are a higher quality than what you would be getting.

Next is you have no idea how dual channel memory works. Its just a matter of having 2 sticks to run together at the same speed, you dont buy "dual channel ram" that is dual channel its the same as individual sticks just they are sold together and tested together to work.

Third is, I am a computer junky. I LOVE to build computers, putting it together myself is half the joy in owning it. I heavly mod all my systems and always do it myself.

Here is the proof of what I say about PC2 5300 vs 5400 from corsair:
http://www.metku.net/index.html?sect=view&n=0&path=reviews/ddr2_1/index_eng

As for 7200 vs 5400 if you look at my previous post you can clearly see its model dependant the 250gb WD I plan to buy is taking down almost every single 7200 drive out there!

I dont mind you trying to teach me somthing, but when I already had the proof and facts posted to back me up before you said anything, its kind of insulting that you didnt take the time to read it.

Im not a mean person by nature, so dont think im comming off harsh You can debate with me till your blue in the face (or your fingers tired from typing) and you still wont have me upset, so I ask the same of you take anything I say with a pinch of salt.

edit: here I took the time to compile the charts from toms hardware for you.




Your 100gb seagate is highlighted 7200rpm, my 250gb WD is highlighted with the 5400rpm speed.

As you can see, the HDD im buying is actually faster than yours, but not only that but im getting more storage per dollar to boot!

your 119$ for 100gb 7200 vs my 210$ for 250gb.

 

any 1 of you guys know a step by step installation/instruction of CPU,HDD,wireless on a laptop??? i might be considering getting a c90S due to the fact that i love building stuff(plus my budget) but i just need some help and a step by step instructions...thanks...oh and this would be my 1st laptop to buy...hehe....

 

I'd gladly lead you thru it. Im sure due to the nature of the C90 the manual will give you step by step instructions. Just like any desktop mobo does.

Like Ridley said tho, if you want sombody like gentech will put it together for you free of charge given you want parts they sell.

This will be my first laptop aswell. Im getting this instead of building a new super desktop rig (quad core kentsfield, 8800GTX or X2900XT, 4gb ram, ect)

It wont be nearly as strong as that, but since I have a respectible desktop already, I need a notebook more I think so I can take it to work and have some mobility.

 

i was also thinking of just getting the c90 plus the cpu installed from gentech and ill do the other stuff myself....im feeling a little nervous/sensitive when talking about the installation of the cpu myself, just to be sure....plus i wont be using that thing unplug anyways so battery life is out of the factor to consider...

 

What ever makes you comfy

I dont know if the cpu install will be hard or not, its pretty basic in a desktop (except my water cooling setup was a pain) but the notebook may be a diffrent story.

 

Okay, no need to get your panties in a knot. I was just wondering what the difference was.

EDIT: By the way, according to the spec sheet, the C90S can only support up to 160GB, and care to explain this: http://www.storagereview.com/160notebook.sr?page=0%2C1

The Seagate Momentus 7200.2RPM hard drive beat the WD Scorpio in almost every test. Eh?

 

Yeah its the 160gb model not the 250gb. its much faster.

if you notice the trend the larger the capacity drive the faster and better its stats, just compare the 160gb seagate to the 100gb.

less heat and better battery are benifits of 5400rpm aswell.

as for support for 160gb only, that makes no sense probably means thats the max it can come configured with or at the time of writing specs they didnt have the 2.5" 160+gb models.

specs sheet also says it only supports like 3.2gb of ram or some oddball number, but I happen to know it supports 4gb of ram. So guess they based that on the idea of it being configured with a x86 OS.

 

Yup, the hardware can take at least 4GB of RAM but 32-bit Windows Vista will only recognize 3.2GB of RAM. 64-bit Windows Vista might support more, as I can't recall directly but I believe Windows Ultimate also has support for more RAM.

 

But look here, from that article.

This was posted yesterday. With all due respect, last time I checked, the amount of storage doesn't necessarily mean how much faster it reads processes. Maybe you can educate me. Here's the spec sheet, btw:



Where did you get that it supports 4GB of ram? Everywhere I have checked, including the ASUS press release and online retailers say it supports only up to 3GB. This spec sheet supports that. Either way, 3GB of memory should fit you for years. Any more is redundant. If the reasoning is because it was tested on Vista, if you're into gaming, you should start thinking that Vista is going to be your only option soon enough, what with games like Halo 2 and Alan Wake setting up to be Vista exclusives.

And one last thing, if you're looking to buy a DTR, battery life shouldn't be your concern anymore, since you've thrown that out the window by picking this in the first place. It's all about performance, which is what you obviously have to look for in picking parts. I know a lot about computers too - I've built my fair share in my spare time. I'm not saying it's cool to have a tiny battery life, but all the parts that you can get here, including a big hard drive and a desktop processor, pretty much says you weren't shopping for something with a 4-hour battery life. If you want something like that, get the Compal IFL90 or the Asus G1S instead. This baby has enough fans to take care of the heat from a 7200RPM hard drive, and you can always get a cooling pad as well.

 

Ultimate falls into the same category there is a x86 and x64 version of it. x86 OS can not detect more than 3.2gb~ of ram its simply not part of the core architecture.

On an asus notebook tho all of the choices you get are x86 except for ultimate witch is x64 (as far as what os to get with the machine). If you buy retail tho, you get both with ultimate, and you get x86 with all the others but get rights to request a free copy of x64 for just the price of shipping.

Since your retail code is the same for both x86 and x64 if you have a friend with ultimate, or any of the other x64 disks (they are all the same) or if your handy with torrents. You can just do it that way aswell.

Your code from the asus one tho is only good for that disk and that version, think of it as a special kind of OEM.

 

Just wondering but if I get a EDU home premium which is what I plan to get with my C90S will it be the 64-bit version? I don't see the need to use a 32-bit Vista when I can use 64-bit which will perform better.

 

I need the full size link of that so I can see it, as far as size... its just how it is. Even one of the mods/admins here said in the 7200 vs 5400 debate that a 5400 drive keeps up with the 7200's once they hit 160gb area. Its the tech they use not the size, but thats the easiest way to reference it.

As for 4gb of ram, support of ram is going to be determined by the chipset, its based off the same chipset as the desktop and it supports 4gb of ram. If they intentionally blocked it via bios that would be pointless so im sure thats not the case, there specs for this machine are old. With things like "supports up to 160gb hdd"

For abit more enlightenment on the hdd deal check out this chart, pay attention to how the higher storage seagate is faster than its next lowest size brother (160gb is top, then 100 ect) then the same holds true for the other hdd's for the most part. the WD may be 5400rpm but its 250gb and based on a dual platter design and perpendicular tech.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/06..._to_notebooks/page15.html#write_transfer_rate

There are even 300gb 2.5" drives out now who knows they may be faster than both the 250 WD and the 160 SG

 

http://1toppc.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=C90S
-- At the bottom is the spec sheet.

Yeah, storage is no option, if you're willing to blow your budget. I think the most appealing thing here is that it's cheaper than the G1S, imho. Because otherwise, you could pick up one of those and upgrade them and get a much better battery life in the process. That's how I see it, anyway. You could always go over $2k with just the C90S. I guess it really depends. If I was spending that much money, I'd say to hell with a laptop and buy a desktop with Quad-SLI and Quad-Core processors.

 

You will get the x86 (32 bit version) Ultimate is the only one that comes with both disks in the package.

But with all retail products (including edu, and upgrade) you get a slip to mail into MS and they send you the x64 disk for free except s&h.

I got the edu upgrade ^^ 70$ shipped. Thats the best vista deal, and I wouldn't pay more than that since I really don't care to move to vista just yet (not on my desktop, but on my notebook I do for DX10)

Like I said before tho ALL vista disks are the same.

Home, Home Premium, Business, Ultimate ect. No matter wich one you buy in the store all of them are the exact same dvd. The only difference is the code you get, that code is what determines witch version it will install.

Same goes for the x64 disk, they are all the same but Ultimate is the only one that comes with it, and thus why you can just borrow somebody's x64 ultimate disk and install your home premium x64 if you want from it.

 

I shot an email to Asus, lets see if they actually answer.

 

Not at the same specs as the G1S. It costs $2000 which is more expensive than the G1S by $100-$200. On top of that, you have to pay for a windows os, and have to deal with driver compatibility issues. I don't think any gamer will consider the MacBook as an alternative.

http://dailytech.com/Apple+Updates+MacBook+Pro+Lineup/article7550.htm

 

Hey I asked this in the other c90 picture thread but every1 was too excited about the f8. On the chinese engadget site which I translated through google :
http://translate.google.com/transla...&hl=EN&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=/language_tools

It says that the c90 supports ddrII-800 ram while on gentech and official sites it says ddr-667 ram?

 

Yeah good info, like I said these released specs are wrong or outdated.

The easiest way to know is due to the chipset.

Ram support only depends on 2 things, the cpu and the chipset (besides bios)

The chipset used here is the 945G & ICH7-M

Check out what that means:

http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/945g/index.htm

4gb ram support, 1066mhz fsb supported for the cpu (also 800mhz and 533mhz) all you need is ram that can do 800mhz and you can run it that fast, even 1066mhz will be supported even tho its not documented, but good luck finding DDR2 to do 1066 . Thats one of the "neat" things about a C90 refresh using the "beerlake" chipset is that it will support the stronger and less power hungry 45mn pentiums and DDR3 memory wich will go 1066mhz allowing a 1:1 cpu:ram ratio for maximum performance (DDR3 right now tho is too premature and getting worse scores than slower DDR2)

This is one benifit a G2S or G1S user has is the newchipset. I dont consider it a deal breaker tho they can upgrade there ram to DDR3 but it will be very expensive and not show any benifit for quite some time till the tech improoves, they can upgrade there cpu to the 45mn moble version wich will cut there heat and battery use some and give them more processing power, but it still wont beat out a higher clocked desktop C2D like you will have in the C90.

I guess you can look at the G1S/G2S as well tuned production cars, while the C90 is a custom built raw power hotrod. The hotrod will win in performance just due to the horsepower.

I have a good feeling that there will be a C91S or C90(X) that uses the beerlake chipset and that would be the ultimate thing to own, however its not announced yet and I dont think I will wait. Even if they have plans for it, they wont anounce it before the initial sales of the C90 because then they would lose business, people like me would hold off for the refresh.

 

Oh also the news posted on the front page of notebookreview.com is good news indeed.

the 8800 cards for notebooks are going to be 22w. The C90 supports up to 25w MMXII. so as long as they make a 8800 card with MMXII format you can upgrade to the highest moble card around, gamers should be very happy.

 

Yeah the c90p supposedly. I am waiting for that since it is supposedly due this summer. I will buy the c90 because I need a new laptop by the end of the summer but by then the 8800m will probably be available for the c90 so if the c90p doesnt come out by then I will at least get the 8800m. I definitely dont want to buy the barebones with 8600gt then sell the 8600 for alot lower price then i paid for and buy a brand new 8800m. Though Im dieing from all the waiting I figure since I have been waiting since january I can wait 2 more months and make it worth it. Thanks for the info vicious

 

Yeah np, definly since alot of people are looking to this notebook as a solution to "future proof" we would all want the beerlake chipset.

It may give you a sharp pain in the side if you get one now and they do release a refresh down the road but atleast you have a notebook, it may be worse if you wait and it doesnt come out.

Performance wise this chipset vs the beerlake will be nearly identical with the same equipment. Beerlake has better memory conrollers so your benches will go up some in memory performance but in real life gains it will be the same.

it wont show any real benifit untill you can toss a 45nm dual/quad core in it, but as a new cpu your looking at anywhere from 500$ to 1000$+ for one of those new cps probably.

By the time they drop down in price to meet or beat the current C2D in price/performance, you may as well have had this system for over a year.

The only imediate benfit to waiting may be waiting to see if one of the 8800 cards will have a MMXII format and then trying to track down a reseller that sells the C90's with the 8800 in it. Or some places sell the C90 with no card for like 700-800$ and just buy the card and put it in yourself.

Who knows how long untill that knowledge is out tho, and I think the 8600GT will be more than enough for my needs.

 

i more thing i need 2 ask..
if i bought windows vista separately,means that i need to find all drivers for c90s? well...not all laptops has drivers to download separately..
25W for a 8800?! you must b kidding,even a 8800GTS uses 120Watts

 

We can only hope the C90P will support quad-core processors.

EDIT: Vista comes with a lot of hardware drivers, and it can also search for them for you as well. That's one of the real beauties of the new OS.

 

Well the official date of the new conroes is july 22nd i think so maybe they will announce the c90p then? the thing that bothers me is that the c91 should of been announced based on what asus said to the press that the c91 was set to be released or at least even announced in june which surprised me that they didndt annonunce it alongside the c91 since they are different platforms, one is conroe while is other merom so it wouldnt really be losing profit from that deal since I know alot of people like the idea of the c90 ability to be customized but are going for the g1 because or similar laptops like the compalifl90 because of merom. Maybe they are not done with the c91? seems strange though that if they had it ready they would have announced it since because of conroe vs merom which wont really steal thunder from the either of the two.

Also people are saying that penryn will work with the socket 775? any comments on that vicious? I mean if that is true only real thing your missing with bearlake except minor advancements and the new southbridge is ddr3 memory which will probably take another year to become semi-standarized and drop to a decent price.

 

Yeah its right on the front page they have announce the 8800m card within 22w spec. Probably not the GTX more like a GS version, still tho you can expect it to do more than the 8600m GT.

If you get vista seperate, you should be able to install the drivers from you asus disk. I never bought one so not sure if its a drive image type of deal where it installs the OS and drives all in one go, or if its a OEM OS and you manually pick the drivers to install (like desktops do).

Id just get all the new drivers off the web, they are updating so constantly if you got a C90 today, half your drivers will be outdated in a month probably.

By all means dont worry about getting vista seperate unless your hell bent on x64 like me, or want vista for more than one machine (im going to use the copy I bought for my desktop and my notebook)

 

I think it already does, just its not documented for safty's sake. the quad core runs off the same socket and chipset as the dual core. Asus had said in one of those reviews of the C90S that the C90 doesnt support quad core at this time due to heat issues (not hardware issues).

I think if you plugged one in it would work (again unless they have it blocked via bios) if you undervolt it some or maybe turn the fans speed up manually I dont see why it shouldnt work.

They also said in that same review they plan to put a quad core in the c90 at some point down the road one way or another.

 

I meant they would lose potential C90 buyers if they released the C91 now or the date for it. People will jump on the C90 now and then when they get done with the innitial high volocity sales they can suddenly release the date for the C91 will will appeale to more people for more sales, and probably even cause some C90 owners to sell there C90 to move to the C91.

The C91 if it does or will exsist should be based on the "Wolfdale" the 45nm Dual Core.

This is a usfull link for intel cpu info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core_2

 

No the c91 is just less bulky c90 with no fans in the back and uses merom instead only difference. I've read it in some official sites.

 

Ohh, I wouldnt be intrested in that. It kinda takes most of the point of the C90S away.

You can still "DIY" and hand pick parts and save some money, but the big money saver is the desktop cpu, its also where you are going to gain a substantial amount of power from since they opperate at higher clocks, and have a higher FSB ect...

I would think the refresh to the C90S would be the 45nm (beer lake) desktop it just makes sense. Maybe thats why there is no info then? If what you found as the past announcement I wouldnt be supprised if they swiched up plans to do the 45nm desktop instead. That would be the ulitmate killer system.

More power than a CD2, but less power and heat, with support for DDR3.
Also possibly a low enough heat/energy level to use the quad core.