Asus C90S Review and OS shootout!

Asus C90S Review


Overview

This is the Asus C90S, the newest addition to the world of desktop/notebook hybrids.
While primarly considered a desktop replacment, it's definitly small enough and light enough to be used as a normal notebook, battery life would be your only limitation when it comes to mobility.

The C90S is a barebone notebook that you can customize to your own needs. The stock barebone comes with:

> 15.4 WSXGA+ (1680x1050) ColorShine Glossy screen
> DVD/RW 8x Dual-Layer SuperMulti DVD&CD Burner (HD/BD Option in future)
> Vidia NV-8600-GT 512mb MXMII Modular GPU
> Internal Bluetooth 2.0 + HDR
> 8-in-1: SD/Mini-SD/MMC/XD/MS/MS Pro/MSDuo/MS-Pro-Duo
> Intel 945G + ICH7M chipset
> 2.0mp Swivel camera
> On-board 10/100/1000 Mbps LAN
> On-board Azalia Modem
> 1x VGA Port for External Display
> Primary: 6-cell 4,800mAh Battery, 53Wh (1-2 hours run time)

Interface:

1x HDMI
1x Headphone-out jack (optical SPDIF)
1x Microphone-in jack
1x RJ11 Modem jack for phone line
1x RJ45 LAN jack for LAN insert
3x USB 2.0 ports
1x TV-out (S-Video/Composite)
1x IEEE 1394 (mini)
1x E-SATA (External Sata
1x MCX Connector for TV-Tuner (Optional)
1x Express Card Slot
1x 8-in-1 Card Reader
1x Built-in Camera (2.0MP)
1x Built-in Bluetooth EDR 2.0
2x Built-in Microphones
2x Built-In Speakers (1.5w)
1x Built-in Touch Pad pointing device(2 buttons)
1x Biometric Built-in Finger Printer Reader

This leaves you free to choose

> your hard drive
> the ram
> the cpu
> the wireless card

So my setup uses the following.

> Intel E6700 C2D Cpu
> 2x2gb OCZ DDR2 667 (note at this time that only 3gb are usable by this chipset and I have not gotten the C90 to work with both of my dimms in place, more testing is underway to determin what ram is 100% compatible and future bios revisions should correct any prior issues)
> 250gb 5400rm Western Digital Scorpio HDD


Reasons for buying

Well the C90S really appealed to me since I am a custome desktop builder, finaly I had the option to build my own notebook. Really there isnt much to build its mostly done for you and it only takes 10 minutes to put together but it was fun none the less.

However the major benifit in the DIY style of the C90S is the price vs performance ratio. Using a desktop cpu gives it alot more power than its mobile cousins and cost less at the same time. If your a smart shopper you can easily get top end c90s for 1500$ that would rival 2500$ notebooks preassembled from major companies.

Other notebooks that appealed to me were the Asus g1s-a1 and the macbook pro. The reason the g1s lost is because I dont care for its "gamer" look, while im at work or in a public place as a full grown man, green neon lights just dont do it. The Macbook Pro's major flaw is obviously the price. I think the C90S puts the best of it all together tho, much cheaper than eather and performance similar while also giving me upgrade options in the future.


Where and how purchased

I got my C90S from Gentech (gentechpc.com) and dealt with Ken specificly. By far the most dedicated and helpfull person, even now after the sale has taken place he talks to me on a regular basis to help resolve the few issues I have with my c90. I will definitly be a repeat customer with Gentech due to the great prices and great service. The cost was only ~1000$ for the barebone and I went elsewhere for my custom parts I wanted. Very good deal indeed.



Build and design

At first the design didn't appeal to me, I was in love with the gloss black of the G1S, however over time it grew on me and noticed its really what I wanted/needed all along. The top is a really nice gloss black, while the inside is a basic grey. There has been alot of thought put into the design of the C90S and it goes alot further than cosmetic. The way you have to only take a few screws out to get total access to your internals is nothing short of genious. The keyboard is so perfect to me. This is my first notebook and im typing away on it just as good as I do my desktop keyboard.

The screen is a sight to behold, definitly picture perfect, not a single dead pixel and the most awsome contrast and colors and not a single bit of backlight bleed. Its a semi glossy screen tho, I personally am not a fan of glossy screens because of reflections and I feel it shifts natural color tones into a more sureal state. However I cant say its really bothered me on the C90S it looks great and the relfections cant be seen very much at all when an image is on screen, and this is in my ultra bright office at work with 6 floresent lights overhead. The resolution is great for me and I really apprecate it being so high, however keep in mind if your one of those who hate "small" text and things you may not like it. You can always adust the DPI setting in Vista or customize the fonts or use a zoom function as a work around, however take note it is a rather high res for a screen this small.

So lets dig into some of the flaws, because thats ultimatly what everybody needs to know.

Well I found the heat/noise issue that everybody is usually worried about to be not so bad. You definitly wont use this on your lap, however under normal operation its nearly silent, and when you overclock or do some heavy benchmarking the fans spin faster and you can definitly hear it but its not too obtrusive and its a very small trade off for the amount of power your pulling from the machine. The next major complaint all the C90S owners share is the touchpad. It works, and by all means you could use it as the primary pointing device, but it is rather poor. Its kind of sticky to your finger due to the paint on it, so you want to crank up the sensitiviy under the options and press lightly to use it right. The best remedy for this is just to use a mouse, you have built in bluetooth so thats a seamless way to get around it. I personally use the usb wireless logitech g7 and love it so far.

The next major issue is ram compatiblity, the C90S is brand new and alot of computers have ram issues when new, and in all cases in the past they have always been fixed via bios updates. I belive I am one of the victims of bad ram so as an early adopter of the C90S I pay the price with no bios out yet to fix it. I can run just fine in standard mode at 2.66ghz but in the gaming mode that overclocks the cpu to 2.93ghz I can get crashes in memory intensive tasks. Also my biggest issue is that I can not seem to run the C90S on battery power at all, I can only go via the power cord. I have not yet found out if this is due to the ram, or maybe I am just a very unlucky person and got a bad unit. Instead of waiting forever for these issues to be resolved, I am posting the review and you can just stay tuned to the Asus forum section for my progress in getting it fixed. New ram is on the way from Gentech so I can test and confirm if the ram is the cause of the problems.

edit 7/18/07 - indeed it was my ram keeping me from using my battery, when running in battery mode the system defaults to power save mode wich caused a issue with my ram. The issue has been fixed with new ram from gentech, I will test to see if the crash in game mode is also resovled tomarrow and update.

So as far as size/weight. You will be very supprised to see the c90 is just as thin as most notebooks if not even more so, also its not very heavy. If you think its heavy you should go to the gym and pump some iron then come back when you can handle it.

Speaker quality: The speakers are so-so, they put them under the notebook wich is both a good and bad thing at the same time. Its going to muffle the sound some so its not comming directly at you from the top of the notebook so you lose some of the crisp sound, however the benifit of this is it helps to eliminate the harsh highs and "small speaker" syndrom you suffer from in most notebooks, you hear the refraction of the sound wich has a more even level tone to it. Bass is definitly not good tho, so dont expect to be blow away by the sound while gaming or watching a movie.


Here are several pictures to display the different features and aspects of the C90S

Opening the box:








Various angles of the notebok:


















The insides:








The layout of the parts on the inside:




Keyboard & Touchpad:





Monitor Gradiant Test:











Solid Black (no backlight bleed)






Processor and Performance

Here is the big +1 for the C90S, by far the cpu in here will desimate a moble cpu by comparison, a desktop cpu at 2.93ghz max vs the top moble at 2.4ghz and alot cheaper to boot. The computer boots very quickly and things load very quickly. This is due to the fast cpu and by large part also my faster choice in a HDD. A high capacity 5400rpm drive is ideal in my opinion, the high data density gives it a great transfer speed, very close to that of the 7200rpm drives, but all the while costing less money per gig of storage, and possibly producing less heat and taking less battery power. This opinion of mine is supported by the fact that the HDD sits just under your left palm rest area, mine is a nice gentle warm tempature to the touch and doesnt bother me at all, while a fellow forum member had gotten the 160gb 7200rpm drive and he says his is quite hot to the touch and not very comfortable. So I strongly recomend sticking with 5400rpm for this model.


Benchmarks

Oh yes boys and girls, this is what made my review take so long. I went very far out of my way to do a very extensive benchmark run on the C90S with many hours of time put in. My primary focus was to create a review thats not only appealing to the c90s owners or potential buyers but to create a piece of information that every single user on the forums and on the internet could make use of. What would that be you say??

Well finaly somebody took the time to do a breakdown of performance testing between diffrent operating systems. There are many questions about "wich operation system should I install on my machine for X reason" Many want XP because its rumored to have the best game performance, others say Vista is better, ect ect.

Well I can say this farily safely even before I conducted my test. Between XP and Vista most people will suffer a small performance loss in games with Vista, nothing ground breaking but its there, however the performance gap seems to get smaller and smaller every day with new games being optimized for Vista and drivers getting better for the video cards.

So I didn't just want to test the XP vs Vista. I also wanted to test just wich version of Vista is better aswell. So I did a x86 (32bit) and x64 (64bit) benchmark of Vista in every test. So finaly the less asked question "wich version of vista should I use" can be answered as well.



So for all the following test I used the c90s with the exact same settings and forceware on a tripple boot system with Windows XP, Windows Vista Home Premium x86, and Windows Vista Ultimate x64.

This is the out of the box performance you get with the C90s, right off the drivers disk. You can get better results by using the cpu overclocking tool or by overclocking the video card. However the main focus here is to see what OS will give you the best performance, and once you have decided wich you want to go with, then you can tweak for max performance later.


Gpu Geforce 8600m GT 512mb stock settings with forceware 101.17
Cpu Intel E6700 at stock settings 2.66ghz

Let the test begin!

3dMark05




3dMark06




Final Fantsy XI Official Bench 3




PCMark05




Aquamark 3




Cinebench 9.5





Wprime (was tested at 2.93ghz in each OS)



Well as you can see, looks like rumors were true. XP is apparently still beating Vista in performance in almost all aspects. However it must be known that these are synthetic benchmarks each game has its own behavior with Vista and depending on that game and your hardware its possible to get performance just as good or better than XP.

However here is the single most important detail. Remember how I said all these benchmarks reflect your out of box stock performance based on the drivers on disk?

Well its well known that laptop gpus are behind on driver support and laptopvideo2go.com has the new ones for you. Vista has new drivers out now that show alot of promise, and its sure to get better.

The newest ones are 163.11 and look at the change in scores just from a drivers change:



3dmark05 went up, 3dmark06 stays the same. Strange but it shows there is potential there and im sure many games can see the difference with the new drivers bringing it nearly on par with XP.

So its my professional opinion that Vista is ok and can be used as a primary OS with no issues at this point. Its also my recomendation if you have alot of old games or want max performance to do a dual boot with xp and vista.

I personally prefer Vista to XP in all aspects but plan to keep XP around for older games, I have never used x86 vista untill now, as I had not seen a reason too. The only thing that ran on vista 32 that didnt run on vista x64 was Aquamark3, and thats a very old and outdated benchmark.

So for those of you asking yourself wich Vista to use... I say its 50/50, if you want 4gb of ram (wich you cant use on the C90) then the x64 bit version is a good idea, but if you want max compatability I say stick with x86. So far Cinebench was the the only benchmark to have a x64 mode, and very few games are supporting it yet.


Overclocking

For those of you who want to know the math and science behind the C90's overclocking program this is how it works.

warning: math ahead, skip this section if your prone to your brain exploading near numbers.

a core 2 duo runs at 1066mhz fsb, whats important to know however when calculating ram and cpu speeds is the systems fsb not the cpu's.

c2d use a "quad pumped" fsb so 1066/4 = 266mhz that the system is using.

With 266mhz as our core number we can do all the calculations for the speed of everything else.

First the ram speed. Ram is DDR2 wich means double data rate, it takes the system fsb and doubles it.
so if there are no bios overides in place to force the ram into a different speed (called a divider) the ram at stock will run 266mhz x2 = 532mhz DDR2 this is the case with the C90S as of right now.

Now your overclocking modes are as follows:

Game Mode = +10% FSB
Overclock Mode = +20% FSB

so the new FSB in each mode is..

266mhz + 10% 292.6mhz Game Mode
266mzh + 20% 319.2mhz Overclock Mode

This means your ram will run at:

292.6 x 2 = 585mhz Game Mode
319.2 x 2 = 638mhz Overclock Mode

Now for cpu speeds.

Cpu speed is determined by the cpu multi, this is a unique number for each cpu. its the number the system fsb is multiplied by for the cpu core speed.

A E6700 uses a x10 multi
A E6600 uses a x9 multi.
This pattern continues for each model of the cpu as you go down the food chain for cheaper/lower models.

Stock

E6700
266 x 10 = 2.66ghz

E6600
266 x 9 = 2.394ghz (2.4ghz)

Game Mode

E6700
292.6 x 10 = 2.926ghz (2.93ghz)

E6600
292.6 x 9 = 2.633ghz (2.63ghz)

Overclock Mode

E6700
319.2 x 10 = 3.19ghz AKA past the 2.93ghz limit of the C90S and why this optioin is greyed out and not avalible to the E6700

E6600
319.2 x 9 = 2.872ghz (2.87ghz)


Conclusion

So with all said and done, I must conclude the review.

I say that the Asus C90S is the best bang for your buck currently out there, great performance, great screen/keyboard. Has looks that can fit in anywhere. Lots of upgrade options, and interface options. Heat/Noise is not bad at all.

Get a mouse to replace the touchpad, and perhaps get your retialer/seller put ram in that is known to work with no problems or wait for a bios revision to come out that sorts out the ram problems.

I am happy with my purchase and would give the C90 a 8.5/10.


edit 7/17/07

I got a new stick of ram from gentech today and the problem I was having with battery power is now fixed, it was due to a ram incompatability. Im sure a future bios will fix these issues, however untill that time it is recomended you have your dealer install there own ram that is known to work on with the C90S.

 

First post!!!! Great review. I was waiting for someone to put all the data into a simple to read format!

Did you have any problems with drivers for Vista 64? It looks like out of the two vista versions, the 64 bit did much better on some of the tests.

 

Another excellent C90S review!

 

very nice review :] i like it alotttt so whos taking out all the other C90S topics(not completely all though just the ones with the useful infos) lol or will we keep them all because they answer many peoples problems

*EDIT* whats the white dot on the screen during Monitor Gradiant Test??

 

how is the heat on the bottom, i know it suprisingly cools it well, but im wondering how it would be on the lap?

right now im using a hp tx1000 and its at 60 degrees celius (speedfan) and it just is not possibe on your lap for too long without getting too uncomfortable

edit: just saw that you woudn't use it on the lap, but do u know what the temp is in speedfan?

 

Quite sure its the flash from the camera the pictures were taken with.

 

mouse cursor, its kind of blury due to the glossy screen my camrea just didnt pick it up well.

Thats also not the gradiant test I really wanted to run but I totally forgot what software I used when I did the review of my computer monitor.


using a flash for monitor pics is a big big no-no. you just want to be in a well lit room, get far back and use zoom, and have a tripod or timer with the lowest iso possible.

However the glossy screen really makes good pictures impossible.

 

the bottom bottom is not bad, but the back unit has a bottom vent also and thats where the heat is at.

im sure it wont burn you, but still having it in your lap means your going to limit the airflow to the c90 and maybe cause it to get too hot over time.

If you want to use it in your lap, get one of those things that have a soft padding like a pillow with a wood plank on the top. I belive they are meant for eating dinner off of while sitting and watching TV, but it would work perfectly as a laptop holder.

 

you have a lot of towels!

but yeah good review

 

Im at work that is the supply rack behind me with guest supplies (hotel manager) I figured it better to use the lightning and space I have at work. My house is dark and very cluttered, Plus i have my kids running around causing terror.

 

Great review V!! That graph program really was a good move =P

 

Yeah I worked hard, but since yours was first I think you got most of the fame. That and I have people still hitting me for negative rep over dumb things (sombody gave me negative rep for saying the MX518 is better than the G5...)

I never actully found a good graph program... I found a free online website that generates graphs for kids in school . It worked, but was very much lacking vs what I wanted. But its good because the simple interface means smaller file size and quick loading.

 

Well, I told everyone to begin with it would be like this, I would release mine first and you would release an in-depth report later, they are two parts to the same review. At least to me.

 

Its still not as complete as I want, I plan to add more once I get all my issues fixed, battery life, actual in game results via fraps, and more info on gpu drivers ect.

 

Great review. Is here a reason that I cannot see the any graphs and screen images?
Is the overclocking software something propritory to Asus, or something they modified? What future CPU upgrades are expected(C2Q?)

 

If your at work/school there is probably a firewall blocking my image server. as for future upgrades to the cpu... None really that I can think of, nor should you really need one. By the time a C2D is too slow for the rest of the system it will be time for a whole new kind of notebook.

 

Someone else who had received their C90 mentioned in an earlier thread that the screen was getting bad ghosting effect (a high ms rate) where characters or moving objects in games and/or movies seem to "drag" so to speak. what's your opinion on this vicious/alex?

 

How does Vista Business perform better than Vista home premium? Or are they about the same?

 

Thanks, I will have to try looking at this thread at home.

 

lol the whole os comparison is just what Ive been asking all allong (cant raise your rep since the site says that I cant).

Vista x64 it is then =)

 

They are all the same, its just a matter of choosing the 32bit or 64bit version that makes a difference.

I dont have Vista Business anywhere in the test btw.

 

I was just asking because I figured that the business version might have less non-essential processes running which would lead to higher scores, but I guess not.

 

Yea, it won't have higher scores, but it doesn't bug you as much with all of the "Allow or Cancel" crud.

Also, about the ghosting, I think swoley mentioned that, because he is a bit of a stickler...about everything. If you notice his test methods..."In Ghost Recon, spin around quickly and look at the edges of the buildings, you will see some bleeding" ... Okay, well next time I am in Ghost Recon and spinning around quickly because I'm probably getting shot at, maybe I will look at the scenery to see if there is any minor blur. Then again, probably not.

 

Beutiful review... some question tho... (alex, you can help me to...)

I will buy one with 3gb ram at 800mhz clock, the c90s can support this ?
my future buy is with 250gb at 5400rpm (the same amout of money compare with 160 gb at 7200rpm) do you think is a best buy ?

de only detail that i change on review are the chart with 3d mark 06 with 3 os... i insert other with full oc (in conroe and gpu) ...

thank you for this mate

 

You may say that, but I'm a competitive FPS player, and ghosting is a serious problem for me. Not to mention the fact that I've been using a CRT since I touched a computer...so I'm a little worried about it.

 

My point was, when I am playing FPS, I don't notice ghosting on character models, only straight lines, and it looks more like motion blur than bleeding. The screen is excellent, though if you are competitive I would expect that you have an external already.

EDIT: Also, about 800 MHz RAM, it will help with overclocking (a little bit), but overall it isn't worth the money. The highest speed the C90S board supports is 667. I think your hard drive choice is good though, since you have a lot of space and high platter density, so that you won't be losing much performance over a 7200 RPM model. It will also be cooler, which will be nice since the HDD is under a palm rest.

 

Wonderful. As long as it's not horribly noticebale like I read earlier, it's fine. And yes, you'd be correct about me owning an external But I will be on the road a lot this summer and I don't plan on taking it with me.

 

I just saw all of the graphs. Thanks for all of the comparative data.

 

Oops, forgot to ask if you ran SuperPi to compare against the C2D CPUs?

 

If you talking about what I wrote, its battlefield 2142 and its very noticeable even if your not really looking for it. The best example is the edges of buildings which is why I pointed it out. Some people do like to know about those kinds of things you know. Its not something you can describe so I gave the best example of the exact place to look.

 

can we get some actual game performance?

 

Supreme Commander gets about 15 FPS average, max settings, 10 in high action. You can lower to med high and never drop below 15-20, depending on the day.

Quake Wars gets 30 in low action, 15 in high action, which is choppy for FPS, so lower to mid and you won't drop below 30.

FEAR Combat I can't get a read on because it sucks on Vista.

World in Combat doesn't drop below 15 on max settings.

Trackmania gets about 40 FPS on the bench on max settings

Lost Planet DX10 averages 15 on the benchmark settings.

Roboblitz doesn't drop below 20 on very high

DiRT gets 8 FPS on max, but about 20 if you lower anti-aliasing and things to about mid-high.

Battlefield 2 has graphical issues due to Vista, but doesn't drop below 25 on max settings.

I would have fraps screenshots, but I screwed up and deleted them all

 

No I have not run superpi I did wprime instead because wprime is dual core compatible. Superpi is only a single threaded aplication so only 1 core is used.

 

Are there other benchmarks from C2D CPUs that have run and posted the results from wprime, that you know of?

 

Thanks for the great review. I just ran 3DMark06 in OC mode on the below config, no settings changed all stock, and I am getting 3167 w/over 200MHz less CPU & Vista Ultimate 32bit...I will find out which driver version our team is using, if different~

Portable One FX
(E6600 2.40GHz 15.4" WSXGA+ 2GB 100GB DVD±RW CAM 56K 10/1000 WiFi BT TV with Ultimate 32Bit)
Item: FXC90

Our team is using version 101.19; just looked at properties; updated to 165.01 yields 3243 stock; really like these machines.

 

CPU temp at 81C according to Sandra. Don't hear the fans since I upgraded the drivers. What controls them and how do I get to the BIOS?

 

If you can hang on a bit I will run it now and post the results here. I have a T7500 2.2ghz processor.

 

Alex, are those benchmarks with an overclocked gpu? Also, people were complaining about stability and overheating when the laptop first came out. Has this been fixed or was that just some people with problems?

 

Wprime T7500 2.2ghz results:
32M: 39.513sec

 

Mostly stock for the GPU, though some may have been OC'd, subtract 2-3 FPS for the OC, to be sure. All of them were in the C90's "Gaming mode" 10 percent overclock.

 

WOW!! Great review!

I especially like the benchmarks on all of the different OS's.

One of the better review that I have read.

 

yeah a whole database here on the forums:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=2173691#post2173691

Im top place in dual core and 2nd place in single core. I plan to get my first place back in single core next time I have free time aswell because I can definitly get better.

 

Just want to add now that I am done with my benchmarking for the forums and actually doing stuff with the c90 for myself I am very glad I got a 250gb internal hdd. While its totally a capable game machine and it was one of my original intentions to be able to game on it, I find at work im using it more as a media machine since I can just que up music videos or songs and listen to them and still keep a shart eye/ear out for work related task, while a game would take my attention too much.

The extra space is great for holding all that stuff tho, not to mention games and things are so large these days. (also a triple boot here so thats eating some space too)

So I very much recomend the WD 250gb 5400rpm Scorpio for this machine or any notebook. Its cool, quiet, fast, and has alot of storage, oh and cheap too, like 180-190$ on newegg.com

 

Thanks I will have to look at that thread and see if I can get wprime to run on my SZ360.

 

You can easy, the only bump in the road you may run into is needing to install and register an .ocx file, I can walk you thru it if you have that problem, but just googling it works just as well.

 

Woot! Thanks for the benchmarks

 

One last test friend, the score of this laptop on any SO in SuperPi at 1m ?

With oc and without oc

Thank you in advanced

 

yah wondering out superpi myself even though i know it is only for single core

 

I finally got it to work. My score is a little low for a T7200.

 

Ill do super pi later today, I forgot my power cord from home to bring with me to work tonight so cant test super pi very well.....

I however have a major update!!!!!

Looks like my problems have been fixed and it was due to incompatible ram. I can run the C90 from battery power now just fine, looks like just at an hour of operation under a normal load with the battery is how long it will last (listening to music, and watching music videos)

I cant test the game mode and see if I get a crash since I left my power cord at home, its pretty safe to assume that that problem is fixed aswell but lets not say so just yet untill I test it.

If both issues are resolved however, I have a flawless and perfect system.