looking to buy C90s

i had a dell laptop that i liked alot, some sh!tbag contractor brought illegal immigrants into my home and the laptop disappeared. anyways, i need another one pretty quick.

dell cant even build me one till after january 13th, hp just royally screwed me over, and i have always loved the idea of the barebones asus. i am close to pulling the trigger.

few questions: i see it supports desktop c2d's... but most everyone has either 6600, or 6700, etc... does this computer support the 6750's, or the e4300's or something that is newer and will run at a lower temperature? i have 3 c2d's in desktop computers i could use to check, but asking before ordering would suit me best. the e6750 in my brothers runs so much cooler at 3.0 then his e6400 or e6600 ran at stock! in addition, i have an e4300 and it runs at 23c idle(its a media center pc with stock intel fan) and i love it!

also, is there a heat difference in the 8600m gt with the ddr2 vs ddr3? would rather have a cooler temp than performance.


more importantly, is there any reason you can think of NOT to buy this laptop. i like the 1650x1050 resolution, better then my old 1440x900. i will be running XP pro and 2gb ram if i get this one. i would actually prefer the 8400m gs but it does not look like they are compatible.

 

I know they don't support the 6750, dunno about the 4300 but I don't see why not, but you should check more before taking my word on it.

yes there is a huge heat difference, definitely get the GDDR2 card if you're not concerned about performance. I have the GGDR3 and I run at 75C idle, on the other card I think it's down near 50 or 60.

yeah, the screen is beautiful - the only thing I don't like about my C90 is the heat, but it's not that bad. I love this laptop.

 

I chose to go with the GDDR2 card because of the driver issue, if the GDDR3 card worked with new drivers I would definitely go with that card as there is nearly a 30% boost in performance. The temps seem to vary alot for all of us even with the same setup it has alot to do with luck and the quality of the cpu and gpu you get.

Mine is idle 53c right now on the gpu and 51c for the cpu (well playing mp3's so its not 100% idle) but thats with my mod and my cooling pad on. My temps droped ALOT both when I got a new cpu and a new gpu my old ones both ran too hot.

 

If you can find a GDDR3 thats in stock, please PM me.

 

everywhere i have looked gddr3 has been out of stock. the only real games i play are bf vietnam, and call of duty 4. thats about it.

also, do you know as to why the 6750 would not work, but the 6700 would? that sounds kinda wierd. i dont think there is much difference with the 6750 over the 6700. i have a 4300 so i could definitely try it, and a 6400 and a 6750 i believe. its either that or a 6700 that my brother has in his desktop.

 

ahhh, ok found out it will NOT support the Exx50 chips...

c90 will only support 1066 FSB chips, the 50 series is a 1333fsb chip. ok, that answers that.

 

The E4500 ($120) and the E4600 ($140) are supported

4300 and 4400 are officialy supported but my E4500 is detected correctly in the bios. Couldn't be sure about the 4600 because it's newer than the bios though.

 

well, i have made a purchase. unfortunately it was not the asus c90s.

i went with an MSI based barebones. the price was unbeatable, and it supports the merom based cpus, something i much rather prefer then the desktop cpus. the things i have heard about the c90's, and read about the temps just really turned me off to them. and a desktop cpu? yeah that would work great... if you could actually cool it. seeing my brothers e6600 run 65c with a big tyhpoon at stock clocks playing a game just made me cringe.

i ordered the "zt element" from newegg(based on msi 1790 or something like that.

yeah, the cpu is a turd... but when penryn hits and merom prices drop ill pickup a t7700 or maybe the xtreme model. only cost 1119 shipped.

160gb hd
2gb ram
1.5ghz c2d
17" 1650x1050 screen
oh, and 8600GT

i am happy with it. thanks for the info on the asus, i just dont think i want to deal with the heat issues.

 

I built my C90 for like 1400$ before I upgraded parts of it so I dont think thats a great deal but as long as your happy thats all that matters.

 

i could not find the asus for under 950. new c2d from newegg is like 135, plus about 75 for ram, plus about 120 for hard drive.

thats more then i paid right there, and its ready to go and comes with vista. however, im going to dump that as soon as i get it and go with XP pro.

i thought it was a pretty good deal, especially for a 17". a similar dell was 200 more.

you do realize this is a ready out of the box to go laptop right? it is configurable too, and i do plan on swapping out the cpu's at some point in time. its got everything the C90s has, including the 8600gt, bluetooth, etc, etc.

 

C90S Barebones $757 - http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=DMC90S-DVB
2gb RAM $38 - https://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=T667SB1G_V
8600m gt ddr2 $190 - http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=NB-C90-VGA
WD 160gb hdd $88 - http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=HD-WD160BV
TOTAL - $1073

e6600 $224 - http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=E6600
TOTAL - 1297$

e4300 $102 - http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=E4300
TOTAL - $1175

I got my e6600 for $150 in the classifieds of a forum....

Edit: Believe it or not I was looking at that ZT Element laptop. They are just rebranded MSI barebones 1719 I believe. After doing the math of building the barebone up, it still came out to be pretty damn close to the C90S for less. C90S has MXM II, which in the future Asus will probably release newer cards for it (/prays for the 9600m GT or something). http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=533927

 

thats still more then i paid, and mine comes with an os installed.

i am happy with the choice, although the c90s is still a badass notebook. i do like the 17" screen though. if i dont like the thing, ill sell it and get something else. but it looked like a real nice laptop.

 

http://www.thenerds.net/ASUS.NVIDIA_GEFORCE_8600M_GT_512MB.90C1CIZ5JXBN00Z.html


you could get the Gfx card from thenerds.com and save $70 and another $20 saved for getting a 120GB harddrive. Thats a total savings on $90 that could be the difference between deciding what processor to get.

 

dang, thats a good price on the video card. its too late now anyways, newegg doesnt accept returns on laptops.

 

Did you get the laptop yet? If not, you can still return it. All you have to do is tell the ups man that you want to return it to sender (just don't open the box). Did the same thing when they sent me two copies of guitar hero. The policy is that they won't let you return games, but if you tell the ups guy to send it back to sender, then newegg will refund you back in full and do an automated RMA on it. A newegg guy told me that when I called and asked about it. Call them and see for yourself. I know that a laptop is a little more nerve racking then a 90 dollar game, but hey you have the right to refund since you never recieved the item.

 

Oh, and newegg is usually good about bending the rules on stuff. I've order 10's of thousands of dollars over the last x amount of years(mostly for work) and they have been really good about returns.