c90 vs g1s-a1 decisions decisions!

so after many weeks and "deciding" on various laptop companies, i believe ive finally settled with asus.
what i was looking for is a powerful gaming 15.4" laptop for gaming(obviously) and school.
so then i was set on the g1 after reading many positive reviews about but today after surfing around on this very forum! i discovered the C90.

now i am very torn
i can configure the C90 similar to the G1 which perfectly suits my needs but i heard people saying that desktop components in a laptop may give me trouble? but im not too sure about the validity of that.

so i was wondering if you could please help me out and suggest which you think is better and also i was wondering which one would be heavier/bigger and which one would have a better battery and cooling

thanks so much!!

 

G1S has a better battery. My friends gets about 2 hours on a charge, not great, but it will suffice. I'm sure the G1S is lighter. The C90 has desktop parts which require more cooling and the C90 has 4 GIGANTIC fans in the back. G1S looks much sleeker.

C90 is hella fast and Upgradeable (Even though I've never ever ever seen a notebook video card for sale its still a big deal)! It has a weak 81 minutes of battery (Comes with a pathetic 6-cell. IDK if you can find 9 or 12-cell batteries for it) As long as you can sit near a wall plug once every other class you'll be good as gold.

 

If you look at my signature you'll probably already know what system I am leaning towards. Fact of the matter is if you have time wait for reviews. There are several reviews of the asus g1s and overall feedback is positive. C90 review should be out by the end of this coming week.

My opinion is that the c90 has the best price/performance ratio. The drawback is the battery life and ballpark estimates around 1.5-2.5 hours maybe topping out at 2hours and a few minutes. But the G1 has the more gaming look while the c90 is more of a simplistic design. Also you will the c90 has a large fan unit sticking out of it thats to deal with the desktop processor heat. Some people like it while others don't just letting you know.

I think heat and overall durability due to the desktop processor is not an issue. Asus is a great company and probably has gone to great lengths to ensure that heat won't be a problem. There is a sager with a desktop cpu and 2 gpus inside of it and the reviews show no heat problems and it has conventional heat dissapaiting methods unlike the "turbo engine" on the back of the c90. One of the reasons for that fan also is because of the software Asus has given with the c90 called turbo gear which has 4 modes: gaming, overclocking, standard, and power saving and because basically one of the c90's selling point is this easy overclocking utility which anyone cause use. Both the e6600 and e6700 can overclock to 2.93 ghz and 1279 fsb.

C90 is also upgradeable and is its main selling point. Now for the AVERAGE user its a cinch to swap hds, processor, and gpu. Though Asus has promised upgrades to the gpu no word on what these upgrades will be and everything is just speculation.

Well happy buying and pssssst buy a c90 !

 

Sager 2090

 

If you read the C90S manual on the ASUS website, it says:

I'd love to hear a hospital call. "My notebook's heat injured me!" Here's the breakdown.

G1:
Portable
Stylish
Usable on lap

C90:
Upgradable
Cheap
Hot
Powerful
Plain

Anything I should add?

 

There's a reason why people buy laptops, it's mainly for portability. Laptops are designed as a mobile computing on the go. Because of this, battery life, weight, and size are all very important.

If portability, battery life, and size is not a concern for you then just get a desktop and skip over the c90 entirely. The c90 is a laptop designed for desktop components. It has gigantic fans on the back, short battery life, and probably weights a ton. It has a motherboard that takes desktop CPUs and an interchangeable MXM video card slot. The problem is that every 18 months the transistor count on any single chip doubles. This is known as Moore's Law. Having a c90 will not help you to upgrade in the long run because the motherboard will not be able to work with the new CPU sockets cause chips are constantly evolving. Four years down the line you're going to be able to buy a new laptop twice as good as the c90 with half the price. Also, by then you can't upgrade the c90 because the FSB will be constrained and you won't be able to upgrade the CPU because the motherboard will be outdated by then.

If you want a laptop go for the G1S else get a desktop.

 

Actually, I would have to agree with goke313 and get the IFL90 instead, it's a much value than the G1S.

 

I lol'd

Sager 2090 is better than the Asus IMO. It may not look as cool (Or even cool at all =/) but it's much cheaper and more configurable.

 

the 2090 lacks eSata and HDMI ports. also i think the screen quality is worse, but don't quote me on that. so it depends on if you think u'll use those 2 ports.

 

noooooooooo get a c90 ; ;. it has power of desktop machine, it is cheap, and it's easy to move around! It's like taking ad esktop machine to class with you

I plan to have my c90 sitting on my desk righ there beside me connected to my mouse/keyboard/monitor and I will have a kvm swith to swap between it and my old desktop machine.

I am going to get another laptop though to take to school with me, maybe that new dell xps m1330 or w/e it is. I can get cheapest option for it. Course then i'm spending a buttload of money ._.;;;;;;;;;;

 

Just remember that if you get a c90 you probably won't be able to move it around easily without a notebook cooler. The thing is designed to use desktop CPUs which have a MUCH higher thermal output than laptop CPUs. The desktop CPUs will be rated at a TDP of 65 watts while laptop CPUs are around 35 watts. So that's almost twice as much heat. What this means is that there will be a lot more heating problems and much shorter batter life.

Before there were mobile chipsets people would just take desktop CPUs and put them into laptops. This made them big, noisy, and hot. Consumers didn't like that so Intel developed the mobile CPUs designed from the ground up for laptops. Of course, the mobile CPUs will be weaker than their desktop CPUs clock for clock BUT your gaining something else, mobility. The mobile CPUs come with better heat management and lower power consumption which result in cooler laptops and longer battery lives. With the lower thermal output companies were able to build their laptops thinner and thinner.

As I said before, if mobility isn't important to you just get a desktop else get a laptop.

 

c90 wont be very hot or heavy I dont think.

battery life I much agree with it will be short. but hey its only a 6 cell battery too!

that lame warning label... any laptop you shouldnt have on a bed or your lap really because thats where they vent the heat from mostly. The c90 may be better at it since it has rear vents.

Nobody here should try to persuade you to buy one thing or another because your individual needs will determin what is best for you.

For me the c90 is best, best price/performance ratio of any notebook ever.

Looks really good (unlike one of the first posters I prefer its looks to that of the "tacky" G series)

The upgradeablity and stuff are just extra bonus's in my opinion.

oh the c90 also has alot of features you will be hard pressed to find anywhere else (hdmi 1.3 anyone???) e-sata is on the G series but not on the other notebooks, and its a very nice thing to have.


A core 2 duo is not a very hot running cpu, people keep refering back to when pentium 4's were in laptops.. thats a horrible comparison. Pentiums 4's were known as "preshotts" instead of there model name "prescott" they were super hot in desktops... and sombody decided to put them in a notebook...

Another thing to keep in mind that the 65w thermal rating is for its given stock voltage and speed, wich is higher than that of its moble brothers. the C90 as a powersave mode wich will underclock the cpu and lower the voltage. At that point you will be getting very similar battery life and thermal ratings of the moble cpu.

(pentium 4 prescott thermal rating was 103w by the way close to 2x that of the c2d and the cooling solution on those older laptops was not nearly as thought out or advanced as the c90)

 

The laptop has been confirmed by a reliable source to me to be both thinner than the G1S and equal to or less than the weight. In addition, a third party had a long hands on view and said that heat and noise are about average for acceptable highs when the C90 is overclocked by up to 30 percent. At stock clocks it is only slightly louder than average and heat is not an issue.

The C90 will be at least a relevant percentage higher in performance (based on FPS) than the Sager 2090, and for not much more in price. Asus has put everything they had into making this laptop the best they have to offer North America (who loves barebones). And the C90 is the most configurable laptop being made currently, it is equal to or greater than the configurability of the Sager...as a biased aside it looks nicer, too

Not to say the the IFL90 is a bad computer, it certainly is not, contrary it is one of the best on the market today, but to say that those features are worse than the C90's is incorrect. The IFL has better battery, a little lighter and is a bit cheaper. Those are its strengths.

 

If mobility isn't important to you, getting a laptop is still a lot more convenient than getting a desktop. My laptop sits on my desk for about 99% of the time, but when I go on winter/summer break, it's just so much easier to pack up and take with me. Normally, getting a laptop would mean sacrificing power, but with the C90 you can get a laptop's smaller form factor without sacrificing much power.

As to having a hard time moving it around w/o a notebook cooler, that's simply not true. Firstly, I currently own a Sager 5680 w/ a 9600 Pro and P4 2.6ghz HT. The cooling features on this machine is less than the C90's and it runs hotter, but I've never had to get a notebook cooler. Secondly, I really doubt anyone will be moving around and playing an intensive game that requires the C90's full power.

Having desktop parts in a laptop with great cooling and the ability to underclock on the go really gives you a lot of flexibility w/o sacrificing mobility. However, best solution would be to get a tablet + C90 lol.

 

This is the biggest reason I have chosen the c90, no better explanation than this right here

edit: you should work for asus marketing team

 

How is the c90 not mobile it weighs less then 7 pounds? '

Horrible example saying in four years it will be outdated. Most technology is outdated in 4 years. Only difference with c90 is that it makes upgrading for the average user easy. Average user meaning any person virtually can unscrew and screw stuff back on which is not true for all notebooks. Also Asus has said that upgrading and removing parts will not void the warranty which all notebooks can't say. C90s upgradeability includes- upgrading to ddr2 800 down the road for me when it becomes cheaper, bigger hard drives when it comes out, and a friend of mine says who builds computer says it is possible to upgrade to penryn on 775 socket. Also gpus of most notebooks (who dont support mxm) you cannot upgrade gpus but on the c90 you can and even for notebooks that support mxm it is not necessarily easy to do so or easy without voiding the warranty. Whether or not 8800m will work for it or not the point being is that Asus must know something about what coming from nvidia or Ati and found a way to allow the c90 to upgrade to their future products. Like the many review sites says you can easily swap out the cpu and hd of the c90 in a few minutes.

 

I don't want to highjack this conversation and make it a fight between the IFL90 and the G1S. Both are good.

I don't know where people are getting that the screens are better on the Asus than Sager(IFL90) I've only heard great things about the wsxga+ matte screens on the Sager and I've never read a side by side of the two. If you read the G1S forum there are complaints about graininess on some of the G1S screens that may or may not be a bios problem. It does disappoint me that the IFL90 doesn't have HDMI or DVI out, but it was the compromise I made, and every laptop comes with a compromise.

Back to the OP, you need to think of the C90 as a portable desktop that you can use on battery for sort bursts. Its great for a lot of people. If you ever see yourself have to having anything over 1.5 hours of battery life I think you need to look at other alternatives.

 

Yeah, my actual struggle right now is between C90 and IFL90. To me, IFL90 is better than G1S in every reason. It's cheaper, it has a better battery life, I think it's better-looking than G1S, it has a better camera, and it's not loaded with bloatware. I especially like the NP2090 model because it comes with both 32-bit and 64-bit Vista DVDs in case I want to switch around between them. I really don't care about the HDMI and such on the G1S.

I like to think the C90 is more portable, ie, you can move it around easily, than mobile, ie, use it on the go. It's still far more convenient to move around. An mATX desktop, you have to carry that, a monitor, a keyboard, and speakers. The C90 has all that built in in about 7lbs, and a mouse if you want. HDMI here is just an added bonus.

Personally, if certain articles are true, then we should see the C90P soon. Basically, everything the same as C90S, only with a Bearlake chipset, so it'll support 1333MHz Conroes and Peneryn. I imagine it'll support 4GB of RAM as well, as opposed to C90S's 3. Maybe it'll support DDR3 as well, so that'll really add to its coolness.

Anyone who CPU socket hold upgrades back is silly. Think how long Intel has been using LGA775! Like 3+ years now, and no sign of stopping.

Stores are already listing HD-DVD drives, Blue-Ray drives, and TV Tuners specifically for the C90. I saw the 8600M GT for C90S listed somewhere as well. If their advertising GPU upgradability, then I bet they forsee some graphics cards worth upgrading to. 8700M GT would rock. 8800M would be even better. I'm sure it'll support next-gen GeForce and Radeons as well.

So, I'm actually only going to get anything around my birthday in December, so I have some time to wait and see. If I had the option now, I'd buy the NP2090 in a heart-beat. But since I have some time, I'm waiting to see impressions on the C90S and possibly C90P. I say forget the G1S completely. But, you're the consumer, your decision.

 

The C90 specs are compelling - portability, power, configurable, price - but looking at those 4 fans in the back you gotta wonder about heat, noise and battery life.
I have a G1S (and I'm very happy with it) but I'd say wait for reviews of the C90 before making a decision. You probably can't go wrong with either one so wait for the reviews and pick the one that suits you the best.

 

I think it's a little silly to assume that just because a C90 has shorter battery life (although 90 mins is plenty by me) and might run hotter (although we shouldn't assume anything, after all, have you read one single review about it yet? not to mention, the guys at computex had it in their hands, and I didn't hear anything negative from them) just means you should automatically skip the whole process and buy a desktop. I'm taking my C90 to college. I needed something to game on and something to take notes on, this seemed like the perfect deal, instead of buying 2 computers I killed two birds with one stone.

And lets be honest, who wants to be sitting in a college classroom with a computer that looks like a G1s...seriously...lol.

 

asus should have ripped off MBP looks for the GS1 lol

 

IMHO, the G1S isn't that flashy at all - go check out one if you can. The stock pics make the side lights look like they glow a brilliant bright green but that's not the case and you can turn them off. I think ASUS did a good job in not making it outlandish.

I think the 4 fans in the back of the C90 scream "I'm a mean, hot running, monster machine!" - which is very cool - but I wouldn't want to be the one sitting in front and slightly below someone with a C90 in class, especially when those bad boys start revving up!

 

I think we do know that the desktop processors run hotter than the laptop processors. That doesn't neccessarily mean the C90 will be physically hotter because Asus has gone to great lengths to cool. Those 4 big fans will move alot of air and because there are 4 of them, the rpms should be low enough that noise shouldn't be a problem.

 

Has nobody noticed if you configure the IFL90 to the same specs as the G1S its the same price??? minus the free mouse/bag and the few little extras like hdmi and esata??

so how is it better unless you just want less of a computer.

Paying less for less doesnt mean its a better deal. Its the same cost at the same specs and therefore equal in value.

 

And that's why there's a "quiet" mode...Having 4 fans is a good thing...the more there are, the quieter and slower they can run. my old dell inspiron will probably be louder than the c90.

 

Yeah, that's the IFL90. But, if you configure the rebranded NP2090, it's much cheaper. Also, the G1s has 8600M GT 256mb + 512mb TurboCache. The IFL90 has 8600M GT 512mb. I don't know how they compare, but they'r not the same spec. IFL90 also has better battery life.

 

the IFL90 has the same card as the C90. It seems as though the 512 MB (which is DDR2, as opposed to the G1S' 256 GDDR3) may be slower or equal to the 256. It may be more powerful is well, though, so given that it may occupy any level of performance, it is impossible to predict whether the IFL90 is more or less powerful than the G1S. The C90 should be more powerful simply because the CPU will take a huge load off of the GPU by having better culling power. This won't be evident in 3DMark tests, but it will in-game when we may see as much as 10 FPS better performance in some games(at the max, probably).

 

I'm under the impression that the CPU doesn't hold much bearing on games. I mean, if right now my CPU (1.66 Centrino Duo Core) is at 80% when running bf 2142 and I upgrade to a desktop CPU its not going to be a huge deal, right?

 

for the most part your right, as long as the cpu can keep up with your gpu at the given settings and not create a bottleneck, more power than that wont really boost your fps or performance.

However each game is diffrent, somthing like flight simulator x that has alot of phisics work for the cpu to do gives the cpu more work than the gpu!

Easy to see as people with 8800gtx said FSX ran like crap for them, soon as they released the patch a few weeks back that allowed support for multi core cpu's. Peoples FPS and performance nearly doubled! Even those with low end gpus. The cpu was holding everything back.

I belive this is also the case with shadowrun, my desktop meets all the recomended specs wich means I should be able to play the game at medium/high exept the cpu department. They recomend a dual core cpu. I have a 2.8ghz Opteron... very fast and very strong but shadowrun runs like crap on my PC. I blaime it on poor coding, but what ever they did to this game makes it eat up exessive cpu resources and pulls my computer down to its knees.

Then of course more cpu power is good for other things, like multi tasking, loading speed, viewing hd video content, encoding, compressing, and getting your name at the top of the wprime benchmarks thread

So just because you can get by with lower doesnt mean there wont be a time when somthing strong is needed or atleast usfull.

 

Yeah, Shadowrun is the first game I've ever seen list dual-core in the system requirements.

 

The CPU does what is called "culling" (some of you probably already know this), which is cutting out areas of the screen that the player can't see to ease the load on the GPU. Of course a game will never use 100 percent of the processor for this (because it needs it for more important things like hit detection, etc.), so most games will only hit 100 percent CPU when there is a lot of action to be...well...processed. The better your CPU the better the culling is (which takes some strain off of the GPU) and the more action can be rendered at once (which is important in games like Quake Wars or Supreme Commander where you just have a ton of people/units in the same place at the same time, a lot!) So a CPU won't have as great of an effect in-game as more RAM or a better GPU, but it is significant. In addition, I plan on using mine as a media center (once I get the HDDVD and Blu-ray drives), so the extra HD 2D rendering will need more juice to deal with the heavy encoding. In addition it will help the computer stay brisk for a while longer (the computer feels more like a desktop with boot times and program loading when you have a 7200 RPM drive and a high end proc). So all in all a better proc is never a bad investment, in my opinion.

 

This reasoning is faulty somewhere. If the CPU is heavily loaded with hit detection, physics etc, and it has to do culling (by your definition) as well, then it has even more reasons to run at 100%. The fact that the CPU does less culling when there are more physics etc. to be processed does not explain why the game does not use 100% CPU. The fact that does explain it, however, is that not all the CPU power is needed. I.e., CPU is not a bottleneck in most cases.

There are most certainly some games and situations where the CPU is the bottleneck. It's just that they are not very often encountered, currently -- or at least that's my feeling. I don't play too many games, the last that I played was released in 2005 I think, so the feeling could be wrong...

In my opinion, when discussing laptops, one should weigh the speed of the CPU with other criteria, such as heat, battery life, and portability. It is not at all necessary (indeed, it is rare) that the optimal performance under these criteria is given by the fastest GPU. Then again, the C90 is changing this situation by looking less at heat, battery life, and portability concerns, i.e., assigning less weight to those criteria.

So, again, it depends on what each and every person wants. For myself, the C90 wouldn't be the way to go. I'm sure there are many for whom it is.

 

I am saying that the 80 percent was probably during a low action time (which I assume because he didn't specify when or how he measured the CPU usage), which means that 80 percent of the processor was being used for culling, which is really high. The reasoning was that when the action heats up the difference between a proc that uses 80 percent for culling and one that uses 40 for culling will become quite apparent. (I only have one computer and one proc, so I can't test it, but it seems to make since, so long as all the action and physics take more than 20% of the CPU power to handle.)

EDIT: I believe that Shadowrun was written to be multi-threaded, so funneling both through a single core is slowing stuff down. Which is, as a matter of fact, bad programming

 

Its nowhere in the system requrements that it needs dual core.

The shadowrun forums are full of people "why is dual core required!!!" its not tho its just recomended.

its recomended because the game supports dual core, but its just a feature definitly not a requrement.

I belive tho like Alex said, they fubared the programing up really bad and it almost does require a dual core, because I know my 2.8ghz opteron is just as strong as some peoples dual cores.


The box is whats fooling people "optimized for dual core" just means it supports both cores on a dual core cpu. Letting people know hey your 2 cores dont go to waist on this game like they do with most others. You notice its under the features section of the box, not the system requirements.

 

Pretty low tech. I pressed CTRL ALT DEL and looked at the task manager...

Since I'm pretty sure that there's wall plugs in my classroom therer's only one thing bothering me on the Asus... the stupid keyboard layout... is there a way to change it? Pry off the Fn and CTRL keys, swap them, and use a program to re-map them or something? Also, will the giant fans make me need to buy a special or 17" laptop case?

 

comes with a case if you get from gentech i think

 

Yeah it comes with one, that will probably be one disadvantage of the c90 is the amount of case choices it will have.

the vent on the back will make it not fit in alot of 15" notebook cases probably... depending on how it fits in them.

 

we ever find out if it really does support 800mhz ram?

 

does this forum have an irc channel or somethintg?

 

I dont think it is supposed to support 800mhz ram nativly but im sure there will be a way to force it too via overclocking.

I wouldnt worry about it tho, the performance gains for 800mhz vs 667 will not be noticable, and the cost is nearly 2x more.

Just get 3gb of ram instead, it will beat out 1 or 2gb of 800mhz stuff.


Its not supposed to support 4gb of ram, so that means 1gb of the 4 I bought will go to wasit. Im ok with that as long as the system suffers no ill effects from having 4gb phiscially present (errors or malfucntions or performance loss)

 

well from the benchmarks i've seen, 533MHZ ram is better than 667 for conroe, and 800mhz ram is better than 533 and 667 both. I was planning on getting 3 gigs of 800mhz though, can get it for about 420 dollars from crucial

hejreis the link to thsoe test
http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&number=4&artpage=1965&articID=472

 

eww 420$ thats more than the cost of my cpu and hdd together almost...

hey if you got the money I guess go for it... ill live with the performance kill it wont be big.

With luck good performance 667 like the OCZ I ordred will overclock to 800mhz (given the bios gives you the option)

if the lower fsb is indeed better then you should also have the option to lower the rams fsb in the bios, and hopufully tighten the timings.

that link you gave tho is the exact oposite of everything I have learned about the c2d since it came out, showing massive diffrences between ram of diffrent latencies with experts everywhere have been claiming that the new AMD 64's and Intel C2D are not very latency sensitive, in addtion they claim they do not take a very large pentaly from a fsb divider, wich is the only difference with the diffrent fsb of the ram, is your forcing the system to divide it to run in sync with the cpu's fsb.

Keep in mind tho that these are based on a desktop system, asus could have done some tweaking to get better results out of the new hardware.

Aslo the article itself is dated all the way back to when the core2duo was just comming out, im sure its come a long way since then in terms of memory usuage and efficantcy.

Plus irony itself is that you link to a article called "do you need high speed ram to get the most of your c2d" in which there point they try to make is that fast ram is a wasit and that slower ram is good...and your insisting on getting the fastest memory out


edit:

LOL!! well they just lost some credibility from me. I just got done reading that whole article you linked. look what they said in the end

see where they say dual channel = x2 and say its running 1066mhz and in sync with the cpu... well thats wrong

dual channel does not change the fq, or have anything to do with it.

DDR is correct it stands for double data rate, so it doubles the incoming fsb.

A 1:1 perfect ratio is indeed 533mhz ram tho. 667 is going to require a divider. So will 800mhz tho.

 

yea, it runs out of step, so you lose any dual channel performance gains, but when you overclock that will become less of an issue.

 

dual channel has nothing to do with the fsb or divider alex you still will have dual channel reguardless.

given your in a dual channel setup like 2 dimms that is. I dont know if the c90 supports the new asemetric dual channel so it can use 3 dimms. Probably not.

 

ok well you guys know way more than me so if you think the 667 will be fine i'll get that, But I couldn't find 3 gigs of 667 much less than like 360 dollars so Ithought I might as well spend the extra 60 and get the 800mhz

 

really are you in the US?? check out the ram deals thread.

I just got 2x2gb of DDR667 for 170$ granted im the one that found that deal but i did post a link.

4gb is not supposed to work in the C90 tho, so I paid about 40$ for nothing, unless I use the ram in somthing else or sell/trade it.

I still have a small hope that 4gb will be usable thru a bios update tho, the chipset fully supports it. Just the bios doesnt.

 

holy crap that's cheap! I will probably get 4gb anyway lol

 

ok I want to get like ocz or kingston or crucial ram to go in this machine, and it seem slike it's cheaper to get 2x 2gb modules than 1 1gb and 1 2gb amirite?

arghhhhhhhh i don't know where to buy this ram ; ;

i will just stick with me 420 dollars worth of ram because i don't know how much of a performance hit i will take going from 800mhz to 667, from what i read i'm supposed to drop down to 5whatevermhz and not get 667 ay all ; but is that website stupid ; ;? I don't know what to do ; ;

 

2x2gb is usually more expensive but I found a good deal.

80gb for a single 2gb sodimm is a good price. I try to go 40$ per gig but you pay abit more for 2gb dimms so they are closer to 100$ or 50$ per gig.

 

so i can just get whatever the hell kind of ram i want ? as long as it's like 50$ per gig?

btw i likr your sig lol O_O