Will D900C/D901C support Q9300, Q9450 and Q9550?

I'm trying to find out if the Clevo D900C/D901C will support the new quadcore Q9300, Q9450 and Q9550 cpu's. These processors will become available in January.

They should have the same power consumption as the present Q6600 and Q6700 cpu's, and the 965 chipset can support them. Only a bios upgrade might be needed.

The SSE4 instructions in these new cpu's can speed up video codecs quite a lot, up to 60% ...

 

I sure hope soo..... If so I will be upgrading....

I really don't like that we get stuck with this crappy bios... Hopefully we won't need one... If we do... a company out there needs to step it up and offer us one.....

Joe

 

at the moment, any CPU (dual or quad-core) using 95w or less will work fine in the Clevo D900c/D901c.

Any CPU with more than 95w will probably work, but probably cause damage or instabilities due to the CPU not being able to pull enough power.

 

This is more good news for 9260/9261 owners. I will definitly make the upgrade to the Penryn when available. This would be well worth the money along with the 8800M GTX SLI upgrade. Thanks Eurocom for the info.

 

I think you could be mistaken. The D900C/D901C uses the P965 + ICH8R chipset. Now have a look at this list of Asus motherboards that can support the Penryn class cpus. It lists 10 motherboards with the same chipset that can be used with these new cpus. Other motherboard manufacturers have similar lists.

I would conclude from these lists that in principle it is possible that the chipset of the D900C/D901C can support the Penryn cpus.

 

Sorry for my confusion on this, while I will probably not look at upgrading the CPU for 4-6 months it looks like I will have to replace my system. Is that correct? I have the 9261 (currently being sold as the D901C) with a q6700 currently. If I understand what you said it means the new CPU is not supported. Is that correct?

 

You will have upgrade your MB which is worth roughly 500.00 USD if I am not mistaken.

 

Err... I think if that is the case I will wait to the upgrade to the video card as well then. Unless this is something that I can do myself. But still it is really good news. It will be truly the most impressive mobile platform to date.

 

I agree with grunnsatt from the specs we currently have.. the current motherboard should support the newer chips....

From what I have read.. We should be fine til the newer CPU line comes out at the end of next year... Having a brain lapse on what the name of it is...

Joe

 

I think I need to do some more research on this for later. I was under the impression that this would be good with the new chips coming out in the next few months. But I could be wrong, something in the specs could have changed.

 

With My Little research on this very subject, The Main differance is the voltage the new chips require. It would need to be lowered just a little bit.

That is something a bios update should be able to do easly.

And yes, i read where Intel themselfs were running a Penyrn on a P965 Chipset.

 

That is what I remember from a little while back. Granted I didn't do a lot of research on it and wasn't really concerned with it much. But I knew I would like to upgrade things like CPU and GPU in 6-8 months from my purchase. I thought everything should be good for at least one more release of CPU's. GPU was a good bet but could have went either way.

 

At $316 for the Q9450 2.66Ghz and 1333FSB will be a sweat one. If you can spare it for $530 the Q9550 2.83Ghz will be the top of the line for the D901C.

 

I can't imagine 2.83GHz will make any real difference over 2.66GHz.

Now wouldn't it be nice if Sager or Clevo would tell us if the D900C/D901C can use the Penryn CPU's? I've send both companies an e-mail with that question, no reply ......

 

It's fractional, it will make a difference but then again its all about gaming. The bottleneck on most D901C's is the screen. It's only 60hz. I was just listing the 2 new processors that will be the leaders of quad. I.e. the price to power one and the top of the line one that will work with the D901C. The Q9650 will be 130TDP and be 3.0Ghz, no go with the D901C and its 95W TDP.

 

True, but then the Q9650 is officially called the QX9650 because it is a Extreme class cpu for overclockers. The QX9650 has been on sale since November 12th, and is quite cheap ($999)

 

True I know about the Xtreme with my X6800, although when the Q9550 appears I will more than likely be going that way. from 2.93 to 2.83. I do some video editing and would like to cut my encoding time a bit.

 

I agree from what I read as well. But I guess we will have to wait until they are out to see for sure.

 

Exactly, that is why I want to know this too. These new CPUs have SSE4 instructions, and these can speed up this kind of work quite a lot. I have read about performance gains of up to 60%!

 

I was looking at the specs for this one QX9650 and it seems that it has TDP of 130W so I don't think it will work. Darn I was hoping some of these would work. But I can wait for a while for some form of upgrade or a new stepping with lower TDP.

 

The Q9300, Q9450 and Q9550 are fine, they have a TDP of 95W.

 

You know I think I looked at the wrong chip on the Intel site now that I read that again. Thats what I get for doing research when I am still asleep.

 

well according to intel pages
http://www.intel.com/cd/channel/res...sor/processors/core2extreme/feature/index.htm
the QX9650 wont work with the 965 chipset, to bad since the test I've read say it's running real cool. I've not found the Q9300, Q9450 and Q9550 on intel web pages but dont expect them to be different.

As people have mentioned it's seems to be a voltage issue. The strange part on my reading (non native english article) was that it a lower vfsb voltage (1.1v instead of 1.2) that could cause the P965 not to work (?)
http://xtreview.com/addcomment-id-1...nryn-compatibility-with-P965-motherboard.html
I was not aware the cpu set the fsb voltage, hmmm ok I guess there is hope

 

As I am just about to go to sleep, unlike just waking up. It could be true, since the new CPUs are 45nm technology the voltage requirement will decrease as will the power consumption when compared to an equivalent 65nm chip. So without reading if the 965 chipset doesn't support the lower voltage/power it will not work. I think there maybe something else I am missing and will look a bit further tomorrow well after I wake up.

 

The Q9450 and Q9550 both are 95TDP, The Q9650 is 130TDP. That was the problem that they had with the original running over 95TDP. They 'should' be workable with a BIOS update....but with the track record so far of needing a new motherboard, I'll without making any judgement. More than likely they won't bother with a BIOS update and Clevo will go straight to yet another motherboard. /sigh.

That's why I'm waiting for the announcement to see if they will support the new quads before I take the upgrade plunge. They should have the SLI 8800 issue fixed by then and I'll get what I want. I just won't expect any kind of upgradability.

 

I am doing the same thing myself. I would like to do both at the same if possible. My location makes it difficult to ship this back and forth every couple of months for an upgrade. I may just go for the best I can get at that point and look to something else late next year. If I really need more power then.

 

Sorry to bring back an old post, but I'm a little confused: Wu Jen, how does a 60hz refresh rate limit the system? Did I miss something? The only thing that I can think of that the refresh rate would limit would be the fps while v-sync was enabled. I also understand that certain people see "flicker" at lower refresh rates, but it was my understanding that with LCD's, that wasn't an issue anymore.

Sorry if I'm just completely ignorant here, I like to think of myself as fairly knowledgeable when it comes to technology, but this has me stumped.

Thanks for the info.

 

Np man, its impossible to 'see' FPS over the refresh rate of the screen. Some people may claim to 'see' 4 million FPS on a 1hz screen but then again some people claim to see UFO's as well.

I.e. anything over 60FPS will be lost on a screen that can only display 60hz.

That's why with many games your screen is actually your bottleneck. Most 'older' games anyhow

Hope that helps.

 

Ah, ok - I follow what you are saying now.... I didn't realize that you were specifically addressing gaming. I was concerned that there was an imposed limitations in general (e.g. 3d rendering, etc.). I've personally never been concerned with any fps #'s over 60 anyway

P.S. Are you trying to say that UFO's don't exist?!?! LOL - thanks again for the response, that would have bugged me all night

 

According to this article ( http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2extreme-qx9650_7.html), the Q9450 will be only $50 more than the current price of a Q6600 ??

Any likely ETA on when a Q9450/Q9550 will be able to be ordered with a Clevo D901C ?

 

so i got this laptop knowing id get a mobo upgrade soon for the new gpus and cpus... and everytime i think im ready, out comes a new processor and vid. card needing a new mobo.. i luv the speed of technology!

 

From what I've seen so far the Q9450 the 2.66Ghz one will be about $200 cheaper than the current Q6700 2.66Ghz.