The Future of the C90S

I'm interesting in investing into a new budget gaming laptop for the next two years of college. The C90S naturally peaked my interested as it's smaller and the more potential to upgrade than my current Inspiron 9300. However, I'm becoming disheartened over the fact that the newer GPUs coming out (namely the 8700) will not be MXM-II. If this is the case, then what are the C90 owners supposed to upgrade to? And if, they cannot upgrade their GPU's, then what advantages does the C90 have over the non-upgradable notebooks in the same respective categories?

Also, if newer MXM-II cards are released, how would you go about upgrading those?

Finally, is it true that Asus notebooks work only with RAM from select companies?

Thanks.

 

The Ati 2600 HD will be a definite option it is the equivalent to the 8600 gt but it is gddr3 and while the desktop version has seen worse performance I think the mobile version has seen more performance then then 8600gt. I personally believe the 8800m will be an option for the c90. The 8800m is on a die shrink so it it smaller then its predecssors while requiring less energy and releasing less heat (think penryn but gpu form). Asus has promised upgrades for the c90. The c90 list has 5 cards listed. We know 2 of them the 8600 and 2600, there are 3 more. I believe the 8800 will appear because milestonepc said there would be 5 cards for the c90 by january 2008 and that was months ago and sure enough the key parts list has 5 cards listed. They also wrote that the 8800 will be available. Upgrading there is a link from gentech

http://1toppc.com/Merchant2/images/Notebook/Asus/C90-Chapter%2004-v1.1.pdf
which shows you how to upgrade everything.

The RAM issue I not too clear about I think if your ordering from a site and having it made for you, you will be fine. Otherwise not sure I've only heard of 2 cases of ram problems (I know many people including myself have not gotten their c90 yet) but yeah just get ram with the laptop if nothing else since their prices are not jip offs and you wont save much if at all buying it yourself.

 

if you get ram from the reseller you will be fine whn die shrinks happen we should get a card

 

None of the mobile chips will feature DDR4

 

corrected thx

 

Looking 2 years down the road I think it would probably be more practical to buy a new laptop, and sell off your old one, the C90S. Updgradability wise, I mean MXM II is here to stay for a while I hope, so you could look for future options of video cards later. Right now stick with an 8600m gt or 8700m gt, and next year I ma sure Nvidia is releasing their 9000 series chips or equivalent for ati. Looking two years ahead is alot of time in the computer world. Many advances in the tech and specs and standards will happen.

 

The C90 will hold its own in its current configuration in every aspect except the gpu needs an upgrade to keep up, so lets hope they get some powerfull mxmII modules on market.

The cpu will be fine for quite awhile 2.66ghz stock and 2.93ghz in game mode... thats a good leap ahead of most notebooks. The hdd tech isnt changing anytime soon unless you fork out the major money for a SSD, 3gb of ram will hold you just fine. ECT.

The only weak point is definitly the gpu.

 

I've been keenly following news and progress of the C90 but it's not quite what I expected to be sure. Supplied with an underpowered gddr2 card off the bat (wasn't it supposed to be gddr3?), and a finite lifespan with 22w MXMII I'd say it's upgradable future is definitely limited. Even if we see a 8800 card that's hardly going to stay current for 2 years +.

FWIW I'm glad I waited for the initial reviews. Lets see how the C80 turns out...

J.

 

Well, the industry seems to be gravitating towards MXM-II as the standard, especially since the next chips will be made on 45nm. The MXM-III slot will be standard for 17"+ and MXM-II will be standard for 14.1 and 15.4 inch.

 

I agree with Alex, I dont see a point in abandoning MXM-II just yet....all they have to do is shrink the die (45nm) which as you all know is the most popular thing to do in gpu and cpu technology.

 

Well it was never actually said that it would have a ddr3 card. For awhile it was not even known what would be used.

And no, it not going to hold out for two years if you are the type of person who has to have the cutting edge technology. This card will run alan wake, crysis, and others comfortably for myself, a gamer. I milked a athlon xp to run up to STALKER well, and with some tweaking, this will be an awesome system, especially considering the rather small investment required.

 

True, but the same is true for all other laptops... unless you want to spend a lot of money then no laptop is going to stay current in 2 years plus but if you need some budget gaming then the C90 could suit your needs since down the road youll still be able to breath some life into your aging laptop with a couple hundreds buck.

 

um 2 years for any part is unconceivable now....let alone non-upgradeable laptops. and when it comes to the c90....the only things that MAY get upgrades for 2 years is the gpu (doubtful) and the cpu (also doubtful) there will be better gpus and cpus for the c90 but the socket and mxm slot themselves will be gone within 2 years. i promise that much....

 

... were all the pessimists meeting tonight?

 

Of course, for beer and pie!

Seriously, the issue here is that are these "upgrades" worth it? If we're going to be buying new laptops in 2-3 years anyways, then why bother with the C90? Why not save money and go with the 1520 or gain that extra bit of power with the G1S?

I don't consider myself a pessimist, but I am a realist, and I'm looking at the big picture. Is the upgrade ability of the C90S worth it?

 

I think this comes down to a matter of what is best for the individual. I can/have gotten three times the life out of my notebooks and desktops than everyone else; don't mind playing the newest games on high settings instead of the "holy-crap-look-how-shiny" setting ; and believe that these standards will be around when I do upgrade. I don't believe Asus would go to all the trouble of promoting this standard if they had not got nods from Nvidia and ATI getting their support.

Also, I personally would choose this over the 1520 cause I don't care for dell (btw the 3dmark was only 2906), and the G1S is out of my price range.

 

well you may have more power in the g1s for gaming (right now anyway), but the c90s has the capability to be faster than any current mobile laptop, not only because of the speed itself but also because of the fsb speed.

and even with the penryn chips coming out, the e6700 and x6800 will be faster then those. perhaps not the quad core, but no doubt the dual core.

so, although u can't really upgrade the cpu past the x6800, that should be better then any mobile laptop for a while

 

I'm telling you guys, MXM-II is going to be the major platform for the 9xxx series. 45 nm die process is going to clock in right around 23-25 Watts. You don't have do believe me, but I think you will eventually find that you are wrong.

 

I will be laughing when my c90 has an 8800m in it...

 

Me too!!!!

 

Even if an 88XXm/89XXm card never makes it into the mxmII format, I will gladly take the 9600m GT =)

 

once a ddr3 card comes out which will likely come with a die shrink the c90 will become much more powerful

 

exactly my point... for now the DDR2 gpu of the C90 will be good enough for gaming at medium highish settings then in a year or so upgrading to a faster DDR3 GPU will let us play higher end games that will be availabe at thtat point in time.

all for only a couple hundred bucks instead of going to through the hassle of selling your laptop and buying a new one (of course at some point youll have to do it anyway)

 

Even then you could buy another "C" series barebones and put the new GPU you bought into it along with your ram and just upgrade the CPU to a quad-core etc. If only the motherboard was upgradeable we would never need a new laptop =P jks

I really hope people buy into the build-your-own-notebook approach it will really help consumers with incremental laptop upgrades.

 

Wow didnt think of that... that will certainly keep the cost of upgrading better (you could sell the old barebone anyway with the older gpu)

 

Isn't the 8500 GT gddr3?

 

What would make you think that? We really haven't heard much about the 8500; it's possible that it was just an earlier name for the 8600 GS, in which case the performance would be similar to the new f3 (significantly worse than the C90).

 

Well, I think something that could have really helped this get out the gate with a strong presence -- would have been to ship the thing with a better first video card.

Personally, I have now decided against this notebook. After Intel's price cuts next week -- I'll be able to put together a barebones Shuttle (small form factor) with a Quad Core (Q6600), 4GB of ram, and a desktop 8800GTS DDR3 320MB for roughly $1k.

I was originally considering this notebook for mobility around the house -- but with what I can get for $1k in the form of a small FF shuttle, it's a no brainer. And the shuttle won't struggle to achieve 4000+ 3DMark06 scores.

 

Brian, I'm glad you have found the solution for you. That sounds like the best choice for your lifestyle.

As for me, this notebook could not be more perfect. I am going to college again this fall and need something small, mobile, and powerful in one package.

The only downside to the c90 to me is battery which is not a problem because I'll pretty much always be near a plug.

 

My earlier comment about a 2 year life span related to the mxmII platform and what I think will be the max card it'll take, the 8800gs. Even with that card you won't be able to run games with max candy at higher res, let alone native.

I'd be delighted to think that cards in the 9xxx series would work with MXMII Alex, but with the power restricted to 22w, even with a die shrink, they'd have to be pretty lethargic incarnations.

CPU might be stronger but there were lappies released with the 8700gt in it before the C90 which would get better fps results. As the C90 is meant to be the gamers solution, why would they launch with a card that's already behind the times?

I do sound pessimistic, my bad, I honestly don't mean to be, I just had higher hopes for the C90 is all. I thought it would finally be the true mobile gaming solution but it seems there's a way to go yet.

 

Well, historically speaking, mobile GPUs have been going down in power consumption per transistor not up.

EDIT: Just a little bit behind that, from an article comparing the 7800 hardware to the 6800 hardware:

 

Uhh c90 has still the best price/performance ratio you can build a whoppin system overall for 1500-1600 and even though it is not the best for gaming (once upgrades it will be the best 15.4 inch in my opinion and be able to hang with 17inches) it like Eddie said in his review has very good results in pcmark05. Still it is good for gaming and can be overclocked. Truth is this makes sense since the c90 was unbelievably cheap and the hit that it took was on the gpu because ddr2 is cheaper to manufacture and thus cheaper to buy. C90 under my configuration was over 200 dollar cheaper then the g1. It will have upgrades so I am not worried.

 

You're certainly right about the price, can't argue with that. I guess we'll just have to wait and hope Asus will allow it to fulfill it's potential. I'll stop sucking my lemon

 

I think MXM II is going to stay with us for a little while since it has been there years ago and has never been really popular. I am typing this on my IBM Thinkpad X21 (700Mhz PIII, 128Mb ram, 20GB HD) that is about 7 years old so I don't expect the C90 to be outdated in 2 years even if it were not upgradable.
But I think that's just me. Even if it is outdated at some point in time I would still keep it because it is such an interesting product and a nice (real) first approach to laptop upgradability.

WHO'S WITH ME?
VIVA LA REVOLUCION!!!

 

lol... im on a gateway mx7525 (ati x600 128mb, 1gb ram, 2.2ghz 1 core athlon processor) about 2 years olds and still able to play oblivion and Fear (with low settings of course)

I guess when people talk about outdated they mean it in terms of high end gaming and new OS (I assume you are still on win2k tops)

I'm fine playing games on low/medium settings so to me this machine is probably going to last me quite a while upgrades or not... still it would be nice to be able to put a faster gpu once i save some money again.

 

After spending some time in the forums I really enjoy talking to the people here. I think that makes it so much easier to cope with all the issues the c90s has at the moment. I think people who buy the C90s share many of the same interests. They are not just average laptop buyers. I for one think all the help I am getting makes the C90s even more valuable.

I'd like to thank everybody for their help and for making this a great experience for me.

 

New ram comes in today will let everybody now how it works with compatibility, also may try out 502 bios and see how that effects things. I'll run a few benches with my current 704 bios and compare to the 502s after the flash to see if the faster memory speed gives any performance boost.