C90S vs Sager NP5790

Right now I'm on the fence between these two computers. The screen size isn't a huge factor for me, in fact the smaller screen of the C90 would be slightly favorable, but I'm curious as to which would provide higher performance.

The C90 would have a 2.66 Conroe, 8600m GT 512mb, 4g RAM while the Sager would have 2.2 Santa Rosa, 7950GTX 512mb, and 3g RAM. Both would have Seagate Momentus 7200 HD's.

Will the smaller chassis of the c90 limit the upgrade ability of the GPU? And with the 7950 being, supposedly, upgradeable would it be better to just stick with the large chassis to support newer cards?

In the end price isn't a huge issue, nor is battery life since they both are around 1.5 hours, I'd just like the computer that will perform the best gaming wise.

Really appreciate all the help.

*Edit* Apologize for posting in both the Asus and Sager forum, just trying to get a view from both sides of the table. Didn't know it was a problem.

 

hey, I don't think you can compare these 2 but I'll try ... The Sager has the strongest single mobile GPU on the market, the C90 only a midrange one. Check this benchmark list: Click Here Even the stronger CPU from the C90s wont help in gaming performance. And yes the C90 upgrade ability of the GPU is limited is duo to the smaller chassis and the smaller MXM II slot. So if money isn't the issue I'd go for the Sager (costs ~1000$ more).

 

Dont double post, If you want to compare two machines put it in the "What should I buy" section, Vote this is merged with http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=151425

 

I'm in the same boat debating between the C90s and NP5790 (I'm also considering the IFL90/2090 as a c90 alternate, and the Toshiba X205 as an alternate to the 5790).

From a purely gaming standpoint (at this time) the NP5790 has the more powerful graphics card, but if the c90's GPU upgrade ability turns out to be true then it could become the more powerful gaming system. It all depends on how upgradeable each of them turns out to be.

Here are positives and negatives I have come up for each system (many of which are not gaming related).

C90+'s
confirmed upgradeable GPU
higher FSB processor
overclockable
moveable camera
cheaper than NP5790
HDMI connection
weighs less than 5790
designed to be quick & easy to upgrade

C90-'s
3 GB memory limit
touchpad (poor quality based on reviews)
possibly hot during heavy use (due to locations of hard drive/gpu/battery)
no option for robson/turbo memory
(graphic upgrade ability limited by ASUS style board)

NP5790+'s
More Powerful DX10 GPU (initially, and may support upgrade in the future)
supports 4GBs of memory

NP5790-'s
heavier than c90
GPU upgrade (if possible) will be limited to Clevo built boards
more expensive than c90
consumes more space than the c90

 

well i absolutely love the c90

-don't think it gets that hot personally - atleast no hotter than my dv2500t or my dell 6000 i used to have.
-although i wish it could do 4gb of memory, 3gb is perfectly fine and I noticed no different between the 2500t with 4gb and this.
-this is ALOT faster than the 2500t with the santa rosa t7300/4gb ram, so the cpu is a major advantage in my opinon
-the touchpad in my opinion is much better than my dell 6000 and 100x better then the 2500t
-i think its also a beautiful laptop

the np5790 has a def better video card, but then again, the c90 will be upgradable, not for sure which cards, but i have a feeling atleast better then the np5790's eventually.
and the battery is better on the np5790 because it doesn't use a desjtop processor

 

The battery is not that better on the np5790 from what I've read. It is 17'' so the the screen consumes more and the GPU consumes more (35W versus 20-25W on the C90). They are essentially the same. But I'm wondering why did asus put a 6-cell only in the C90S, with a 9 cell, it would have had a nice autonomy for a desktop CPU

 

The graphics upgrade ability isn't limited by anything other than the MXM module II. Any graphics card made to conform to that standard will work in this laptop as well as any other MXM II capable notebooks.

 

Yup, the only non-standard MXM are MXM-EH (or HE?) and MXM III Anima (something near that)

 

well i believe alexonfire has tested that, trying an older mxm-II video card, and it did not work because the heatsink was not able to go on top of it - it fit in place perfeclty but witout the heatsink, can't use it.

but its been said that asus is the one that is making the gpu's that will work for the asus c90s. we don't know which ones and perhaps if u modified the gpu a bit, you coudl get the heatsink to fit on amy mxm-ii. but atleast we know that the gpu's they make will def be better than the 8600

 

Did he actually get the heat sink off of his 8600? Last I heard he couldn't get it off for fears of cracking the card. Thats the only reason why it couldn't fit. However, other people are able to remove the heat sink.

 

oh i was under the impression, that he got if off and couldnt fit it with the other card.

or perhaps it was vicious that said he could get his off, and then said that the screw holes don't line up at all, so u would have to find a way to get it to stay in place

 

Hmmm thats interesting on what exactly happened. I was looking at a picture of the 6800 MXM II card and it looked like to me that the wholes lined up the same. ::shrug:: who knows. I may investigate this myself whenever I get the C90.

 

I'll check too. From the Asus manual (gentech has it) the card looks like any other MXM II I've seen

 

Well let me put this out to you:

1.) 4gb of ram in the c90 wont happen its 3gb max.

2.) You can compare the two if you want but they are diffrent kinds of pc's one has DX10 the other doesnt, one uses desktop cpu the other doesnt, there are alot of diffrences including the upgrade options and the ports avalible.

3.) Sure the gaming performance wont change alot due to the stronger cpu, however your day to day operation is faster/better. It allows me to run alot of cpu demanding tasks with no problems, like higher resolution visualizations in my media players, or encode videos/music much faster. I am VERY greatfull that I have the fast cpu that I have in my c90 and it will be very hard for me to ever use a slower notebook now after using something this fast.

4.) The video card... my heatsink (heat spreader) came off very easy, not sure why alex had a hard time. He is the only one that had another MXMII module in hand to compare so he is probably the only one that can answer the question. However he is also the one that said the heatspreader doesnt even come off the 8600gt so you maybe want to look elsewhere for that info.

 

Wasn't the 3GB max a problem on the bios?

 

No (for the 500th time) its a chipset limitation 945g can not do 4gb.