Asus W90Vp-A1 vs. Asus W90Vp-X1

With a price difference of about $300 more for the A1 I need to know wich is best for gaming. I know that with that $300 you get an extra Hard Drive and BlueRay but that doesn't matter to me at the moment. I need the fastest one for gaming.

In this thread i'd like it if someone could post benchmarks of an Asus W90Vp- A1 (3DMark '06 and Vantage and maybe even some Crysis or Farcry2) and someone else bechmarks of the Asus W90Vp- X1. This seems to be the only way to find out wich is best.

Remember the A1 has a Core 2 Quad Q9000 (2GHz) with 6MB Cache and the X1 has a Core 2 Duo T9600 (2.8GHz) also woth 6MB Cache.

I think many will find this helpful!

Thanx!

 

There are a lot of variables here. A lot people will say the X1 has the gaming advantage with a dual core, and that the quad core isn't supported by many games. Others, like myself, believe that the quad core is fine, overclockable, and is essentially providing a good future for the laptop, while the dual core's abilities will deteriorate more rapidly in the gaming market, which is moving more towards quad core compatibility.

It also might depend on what games you like to play, CPU intensive RTSs that take advantage of the multi cores will be better with the A1, while some of the newer FPSs which are not yet doing so, will be better with the dual core.

Even Crysis, runs at fairly low framerates if the A1 is not in OC mode, because the Crytek engine is apparently not a fan of ATI cards, but this has been known for a while.

Overall, in my opinion, the A1 is a better value. The Blu-ray player alone is a pretty welcome addition, as well as a laptop that is already set up for a quad core, making it easily upgradeable when the new quads become less expensive. Not only that, but you have two HDDs (which could be added with the X1 easily, of course) included as well.

Over time, I think the A1 will be on top, but as for this very moment, the X1 seems to have a slight lead. Based on that, you can make your choice.

 

How long do you plan on keeping it? What games do you plan on playing? If you can afford the $300, go for that one. In most games CPU isn't the limiting factor so it should perform the same (maybe a few fps) lower than the faster dual core. In games that take advantage of CPU like Supreme Commander, etc. the quad core will have the advantage. Also, don't rely on benchmarks to determine which is better because often they are not indicative of real life performance. Therefore I feel overall, you get a little better investment with the quad core and a bonus w/ the Blu-Ray and extra HD.