pretty much narrowed it down - Asus C90S vs Sager NP5790

Here are the builds:

Asus:
Core 2 Duo "Conroe" E6700 2.66GHz
512MB GeForce 8600GT
4096MB DDR2
160GB 7200

Sager:
Core 2 Duo T7500 2.2 GHz
512MB GeForce 7950GTX
2048MB DDR2
80GB 7200

my only concerns are for overall speed for gaming/multi-tasking.

The question is: is the 7950GTX enough to make up for Conroe processor, twice as much RAM, and twice as big a hard drive?

also.. am i missing something? is there another laptop i should be looking at? thanks

 

Your gaming frame rates are going to be determined chiefly by the gpu, not the cpu or other components.

Both systems are going to be multitasking screamers, with any potential differences probably being small, rather than in actual use; i.e. I'm not sure you would be able to tell them apart. But I doubt the utility of 4GB rather than 3Gb of RAM in the C90 (see other discussions here about this working in the Vista environment and various notebook BIOS's). And you can always drop a bigger HDD into the Sager later on if 80Gb ends up being too small.

 

The Sager will perform much better in games due to the GPU. No matter what CPU the c90 will use, it won't match up.

For processing, the c90 will rip the Sager apart, much more RAM, a faster CPU, the HD doesn't hurt neither.

The screen size is another factor - it's a world of differences.

 

should i be concerned about lack of DX10 compatibility in the 7950GTX?

so the opinion seems to be split.. both will be equally fast for multi-tasking with the sager being better for gaming or... the asus will be much better for multi-tasking and the sager being better for gaming...

 

well the asus will be easier to move around since it is smaller...

 

yeah i won't be moving it though, my only concerns are for overall speed in gaming/multi-tasking

 

If you won't be moving it why not get a desktop?

 

With luck we may see cards very similar to the 79xx series in the c90 down the road. No promises but im 90% sure we will get atleast something stronger than the 8600gt.

Im thinking a 8800GS, and maybe a moded version of the 8700gt.

Also the HD 2600XT I think has alot of potential in it and it hasnt been found yet.

The other question is how do they compare in price??? the c90 can be built very close to 1500$ if the sager is like 2000$ I dont think the boost in performance would be worth the cost difference. Its just wont compete in price vs performance.

As for other notebooks, you should look at the ones that have the 8700GT in them, its doing really well, good performance and DX10 so its like the combo of both of the above.

 

I'm actually in the EXACT same boat as the OP. It's between the C90S and NP5790. When I configured the C90, it came out to about $1,700 (at the cheapest site I could find), and about $2,100 (at a different site, but cheaper than the C90 site). So it's roughly a ~$400 difference.
I'm not going to be moving it around much (as I'm deployed and in the Army). Normally I'd just go with the C90 because of price, but this is how I'm seeing it:

C90 - Plays games at Medium Res (1024x768) and maxed out settings (or mostly so), with decent framerates. (AVG 30+ FPS)
NP5790 - Plays games at High/Max Res (I won't need higher than 1600xWhatever ) with maxed out settings at great framerates (AVG 50+ FPS).

Now before someone screams - I know this all depends on the game in question, and about a million other variables, but I'm speaking in general.

Whats giving me trouble is whether the greater ram, CPU speed, and FSB can really be worth the 8600M GT, being as it has only a 128bit bus...which worries me. Gaming quality is VERY important to me. Basically, I don't want to buy the C90 and find out I have to keep a low res to have good settings and good FPS. I don't like playing games higher than 1600x1050, but the 8600M GT just doesn't seem like it will be able to keep decent FPS at that high of a Res with things like AA/AF turn up (AA/AF are important to me), even with an OCed CPU of like 2.93ghz and an extra gig of RAM (3 vs 2).

 

Well as I see it, your only option is to wait to see how DX10 runs on the new 8 series and see if its worth it for you. Also the 7950 gtx basically has its optimized drivers while the 8600 is nowhere close to it. Especially when DX10 comes out the new drivers will get a major overhaul. Also DX10.1 is not too far which offers greater options in terms of how much AA/AF you want.

DX10 has many new features many of which you see implemented in Crysis (drools) such as the new shader model 4 (among the many new features) but specifically in bioshock which is also a DX10 game and is slated to come out next month. Also Crytek desginers have confirmed that Crysis will be able to run on 3 year old technology which includes geforce 6 series and single core processors. Granted bare minimum settings on 3 year old tech I think Crysis specifically will make the 8 series shine because Crytek has worked very closely with nvidia and intel so that they could take advantage of the new 8 series from nvidia and advantage of dual core processors from intel. Also just with time like in console gaming DX10 is new and its going to take some time for developers to take full advantage of it (heck just look at halo vs halo 2 on the xbox).

Obviously I am biased towards the 8600 but the 7950 gtx is still a great card and should run crysis fine but in the trailer comparing dx9 to dx10, while dx9 looks great dx10 is just .

 

Great, might as well throw me into this lot as well. Don't mean to hijack the thread, but I'm going to have to. Sorry.

I had originally disregarded the C90 because the huge vent in the back was looking kind of like a plastic tumor but now that I've started to take some interest in the model once again, I've seen some pictures with a smaller vent that doesn't protrude as the one I previously looked at. Is this correct?

I waited forever for the 5790 to release and thought it was the answer to my questions but I'm still wondering if it is worth spending the 2.5K on buying it since the C90 is at least 500 cheaper. It pretty much comes down to which one is better for gaming/multimedia/intense movie watching/college too but no one really cares about that. That is what I need my notebook to do for me.

Since the NP5790 is supposed to be shipping this week and the C90(s?) is shipping mid-July, I'm really trying hard to wait for some reviews for both to see which one is best for me. This is going out to all those that can help me make a better decision, so I'm going to write in most important to least important as far as what I need the notebook to do for me.

1. Multimedia = Music, Photos, Video/Possibly editing of all three.
2. Gaming
3. Watching a lot of movies/tv
4. College stuff = writing papers/doing labs/research......

2 and 3 are really tied because I haven't gamed in such a long time because of lack of time/no sufficient gaming rig. As I develop more free time, I plan to play strategy games/RPG's/FPS/racing and sports. I have quite a large collection of divx movies and tv shows and I'd really like to see them in full glory so a nice screen is definitely a plus. Even though anything will be better than what I currently have.

I'd also like to know which one will be better at upgrading the graphics card later on. I know the C90 is user upgradeable in pretty much everything, but the one that will allow me to put a better graphics card in later(say 3 years.)

Thank you for reading my long post and once again apologize for the hijack!

 

The C90S is also shipping this week for early-pre orders. If you ordered one now I anticipate yours would ship next week, of course I could be wrong.

And just think of what you could spent that saved $500 on

 

The C90 has listed upgrades for an HD-DVD player and a Blu-Ray player (each of which you can buy now, if you know where to look). You could spend the extra 500 bucks on one of them and have a pretty nice movie machine.

And yea, the C90 is shipping on Tuesday or Wednesday of this week to end-users.

 

i think the hd dvd drives are cheaper than 500, bout 300 i thought, so thts not too bad if you think about it

 

Yea HDDVD is 350, but the BluRay allows for Writing BluRay discs as well (I believe).

 

o, i would personally go hd dvd, because i have an hd dvd player, im pretty sure you can record with the hd dvd as well, i would love for a combo player to come out tho, i would deff get it even tho it would b alot of money :/

 

It would be easy to make, but hard to get the rights to. You just need one lens on either side of the platter of each kind, and HDDVD is backwards compatible with DVD, so you would have all three. one motor could move both of them simultaneously, because no disc will need both to read at once, that wouldn't be a problem.

 

Sweet. Good to know that they will start shipping soon. I'm just waiting to see some real life pictures of the vent in the back and if it's not to much of a nuisance, I will order that instead of the NP5790.

 

BTOTech.com has some pictures that I had yet to see (IE not the pictures from the Notebook Convention from back in April). Looks very snazzy.