ASUS W90 Review

The ASUS W90 was designed with one goal in mind; blow all other gaming notebooks out of the water. The W90 features two ATI Radeon Mobility 4870 graphics cards connected in CrossFireX, an Intel T9600 processor, 6GB of DDR2 memory, and an 18.4” WUXGA display. With this configuration it can achieve upwards of 15,000 points in 3DMark06 and manage to fluidly play Crysis at 1920x1080 resolution. Selling for only $2,199 could the ASUS W90 be one of the best gaming notebook values on the market today? Keep reading to see for yourself.

ASUS W90Vp-X1 Specifications:

• Windows Vista Home Premium (SP1, 64-bit)
• Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T9600 (2.8GHz, 6MB L2, 1066MHz FSB)
• 18.4" Glossy FHD LCD display at 1920x1080 (WUXGA)
• Two 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4870s with GDDR3 video memory in CrossFireX
• Atheros AW928X 802.11n + Bluetooth 2.0
• 6GB PC2-6400 DDR2 SDRAM (2GB x 3)
• 320GB Serial ATA hard disk drive (7200RPM)
• DVD SuperMulti (+/-R double layer) drive with Labelflash
• 2.0 megapixel webcam with autofocus
• Altec Lansing Surround Sound Speakers with Subwoofer
• Dimensions (WxDxH): 17.4" x 12.91" x 2.48"
• Weight: 13lbs 4.0oz (16lbs 2.3oz with AC adapter)
• 230W (19.5V x 11.8A) 100-240V AC Adapter
• 11.1v 8800mAh 93Wh Lithium Ion battery
• 2-Year Standard Limited Warranty
• Price as configured: $2,199.99

Build and Design
The W90 looks like a gaming notebook no matter how you try to explain it. The 18.4” chassis is far bigger than any other type of notebook, including any portable workstations. Compared to other gaming rigs the color scheme is very tasteful, with brushed metal panels and a moderately sized ASUS logo front and center. I tend to prefer the professional look over the fancy glossy painted gaming notebooks which make you stick out in a crowd.

The ASUS W90 is one of the largest notebooks that has passed through our office, with only the HP HDX Dragon and Dell XPS M2010 being larger. The 18.4” frame is designed to provide adequate cooling under stress down an Intel T9600 processor and two ATI Radeon Mobility 4870 graphics cards. This means a very thick chassis to provide airflow for 3 cooling fans and a sturdy frame so the notebook doesn’t bend when you try to pick it up. It feels like a tank, in both weight and size. Build quality is fantastic, better than most ASUS notebooks I have reviewed. Fit and finish are excellent and the materials used feel as if they will show little wear over the life of the notebook.

Access to system components is easy through a rear access panel that covers most of the bottom of the notebook. The main area houses both graphics cards, system memory, processor, wireless cards, and heatsinks. The hard drives are located in their own separate area, mounted in a tray designed to hold two drives. Our configuration only used one drive, leaving one slot open. Installing your own additional drive would be quite simple and cheap, needing only screws to attach the drive to the assembly.

Display
The ASUS W90 has one of the “all-glass” style of displays, with a sheet of plastic over the LCD. It looks great and gives the notebook a clean appearance, but it increases the amount of reflection by about a factor of 10. Sitting in a bright office setting you can see a perfect reflection of your upper torso in the background. After a while you get used to it and it doesn’t become as much of a problem, but it is worth noting since not everyone likes them. The panel has a 1920x1080 resolution, great for gaming or enjoying a 1080p movie. Colors are bright and vibrant, and contrast is excellent with the glossy panel. Vertical viewing angles are above average with a modest viewing sweet spot before colors start to wash out or invert. Horizontal viewing angles are excellent, but at steep angles you start to see reflections more than the screen.

One odd behavior we noticed during the review was the system wanting to shutoff when the display lid was closed to around a 45 degree angle. Most notebooks detect the screen closing really close to the keyboard, so it was a surprise to find the notebook shutting down when we wanted to move it to another location by slightly closing the screen.

Keyboard and Touchpad
ASUS had no problems fitting a fullsize keyboard on the W90 with its 18.4” frame and still having space left over for touch sensitive media keys on one side. The keyboard has very squared off chiclet style keys in a traditional frame. It is very comfortable to type on for extended periods of time and has excellent support to prevent any noticeable flex. Key action is smooth with a quiet crumpling plastic sound when pressed. All of the keys are fullsize with the only odd arrangement being the location of the direction keys merged between the keyboard and number pad.

The large Synaptic touchpad is one feature of the notebook that I really love. It has sloped edges around the perimeter, instead of a hard barrier to show the edges of the touch surface. The texture is smooth with a light matte texture. It is easy to use even after my hands were sweating from sitting on top of the notebook for a couple of hours. The touchpad buttons are easy to trigger without much force needed to click. They have shallow feedback and give off a muted click when pressed, not an obnoxious snap.

Ports and Features
Port selection is good, but ASUS left a lot of room open that could have been used for more ports. It is sad that the 14.1” ASUS N81Vp has more ports than the 18.4” W90 gaming notebook. The system includes four USB ports, eSATA, FireWire, VGA, HDMI, modem, LAN, and an antenna port if you get a model with a TV tuner. The notebook also features a 8-in-1 card reader and ExpressCard/54 slot.

Front: Speakers

Rear: Modem, LAN, HDMI VGA, AC Power

Left: Kensington lock slot, 1 USB, Headphone/Mic

Right: ExpressCard/54, 8-in-1 card reader, FireWire, eSATA, 3 USB

ASUS includes a wireless Bluetooth mouse and backpack with the W90, and they are actually not that bad at all for freebies. The backpack offers some protection for the notebook beyond a slipcase and with the brick carried along as enough room for a school book or two. The shoulder straps are adequately padded with additional material at the top to lug around the 16+lbs of the notebook and accessories. The front of the bag has a semi-rigid face for protection against impacts and the rear has pockets to conceal the waist strap when not in use. The mouse felt cheap compared to most Bluetooth competitors, but considering it was free we can’t complain much. It is powered by two AA batteries and fits comfortably in your hand.

Performance
The W90 is easily the fastest notebook we have ever reviewed and even faster than most desktops. The Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 processor and dual ATI Radeon Mobility 4870 graphics cards make formidable team up again the latest games on the market. One of the games that we turn to when we really want to stress a system is Crysis, since it can make nearly every system weep with its demanding needs. With the system overlocked by 17% using the ASUS power ultiity we were able to play Crysis Warhead at 1920x1080 resolution at the Gamer visual settings getting 30-34 frames per second (FPS). This was more than playable for most people, and still offered plenty of room to tweak settings to get even higher framerates. The W90 also produced the highest 3DMark06 result we have seen, topping 15,000 when overclocked.

WPrime is a benchmark similar to Super Pi in that it forces the processor to do intense mathematical calculations, but the difference is this application is multi-threaded and represents dual core processors better. Lower numbers indicate better performance.

Notebook / CPU	wPrime 32M time
ASUS W90Vp-X1 (Core 2 Duo T9600 @ 2.8GHz)	29.080s
ASUS W90Vp-X1 (Core 2 Duo T9600 @ 3.29GHz)	23.494s
MSI GT627 (Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 @ 2.71GHz)	28.143s
Lenovo IdeaPad Y650 (Core 2 Duo P8700 @ 2.53GHz)	30.126s
Dell Studio XPS 16 (Core 2 Duo P8600 @ 2.4GHz)	31.827s
Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 (Core 2 Duo P7350 @ 2.0GHz)	38.455s
HP Pavilion dv5z (Turion X2 Ultra ZM-80 @ 2.1GHz)	39.745s
Gateway P-171XL FX (Intel Core 2 Duo X7900 @ 2.8GHz)	30.359s

PCMark05 measures overall notebook performance based on processor, hard drive, operating system, RAM, and graphics (higher scores are better):

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
ASUS W90Vp-X1 (2.8GHz Intel T9600, Dual ATI Radeon Mobility 4870 1GB)	8,203 PCMarks
ASUS W90Vp-X1 (3.29GHz Intel T9600, Dual ATI Radeon Mobility 4870 1GB)	9,056 PCMarks
MSI GT627 (2.71GHz Intel P8400, NVIDIA 9800M GS 1GB)	7,643 PCMarks
Lenovo IdeaPad Y650 (2.53GHz Intel P8700, NVIDIA GeForce G 105M 256MB)	5,575 PCMarks
Dell Studio XPS 16 (2.4GHz Intel P8600, ATI Mobility RADEON HD 3670 512MB)	6,303 PCMarks
Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 (2.0GHz Intel P7350, Nvidia 9300M 256MB)	4,844 PCMarks
HP Pavilion dv5z (2.1GHz Turion X2 Ultra ZM-80, ATI Radeon HD 3200)	3,994 PCMarks
Gateway P-171XL FX (2.8GHz Intel X7900, NVIDIA 8800M GTS)	7,749 PCMarks

3DMark06 comparison results for graphics performance (higher scores are better):

Notebook	3DMark06 Score
ASUS W90Vp-X1 (2.8GHz Intel T9600, Dual ATI Radeon Mobility 4870 1GB)	13,641 3DMarks
ASUS W90Vp-X1 (3.29GHz Intel T9600, Dual ATI Radeon Mobility 4870 1GB)	15,628 3DMarks
MSI GT627 (2.71GHz Intel P8400, NVIDIA 9800M GS 1GB)	9,137 3DMarks
Lenovo IdeaPad Y650 (2.53GHz Intel P8700, NVIDIA GeForce G 105M 256MB)	2,472 3DMarks
Dell Studio XPS 16 (2.4GHz Intel P8600, ATI Mobility RADEON HD 3670 512MB)	4,855 3DMarks
Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 (2.0GHz Intel P7350, Nvidia 9300M 256MB)	1,833 3DMarks
HP Pavilion dv5z (2.1GHz Turion X2 Ultra ZM-80, ATI Radeon HD 3200)	1,599 3DMarks
Gateway P-171XL FX (2.8GHz Intel X7900, NVIDIA 8800M GTS)	8,801 3DMarks

31FPS in Crysis Warhead at 1920x1080 resolution!

HDTune storage drive performance results:

Speakers and Audio

The speakers were somewhat of a disappointment. Most notebooks that have front and surround speakers with a subwoofer tend to sound fantastic compared to notebooks with only two speakers. The W90 speakers produce almost mono sound with little channel separation and muddy bass with the subwoofer adding to the mix. High notes were lacking and it sounded like our music was playing through an equalizer with the higher frequencies all turned down.

Battery
Extended battery life and ultimate mobile gaming performance don’t work well together on the same system. While gaming with the W90 connected through AC power routed through a Kill-A-Watt, it measured 220W of power consumed while playing Crysis Warhead. While not gaming and running our battery tests the system consumed a humble 60W of power. At idle the W90 draws more power than most notebooks under peak GPU and CPU load. With the 93Wh battery the system was only able to pull off 1 hour and 30 minutes before it shutdown.

One idea we had to save power was to disable one of the graphics cards through the BIOS. We tried this and it chopped 15W off the consumption rate. When we went to re-enable the card we found Windows had removed it from the installed hardware list and still wouldn’t perform at top speed until we restore the system to factory conditions. It was not worth it to gain 20-30 minutes of battery life.

Heat and Noise
The ASUS W90 cooled itself pretty well when you remember that it houses two high-end graphics cards and a fast processor. After the system had been on for three hours it had become noticeably warm, but not hot. Under load the system fans were quiet audible and would probably get you noticed in a classroom setting. With three fans, one for each major component, the W90 throws out a lot of air, and needs a good amount of space behind the notebook for proper airflow.

Conclusion
ASUS really made something special with the W90. Not only is the W90 the fastest gaming notebook we have reviewed, but it is undercutting other high-end gaming notebooks by a significant amount. Comparable notebooks from Alienware or Toshiba with dual graphics cards options cost upwards of $4,000. ASUS offers this faster gaming rig for only $2,199, a perfect mix during this recession where people might not want to spend the same on a notebook as they might on a used car. Build quality is excellent, making the W90 feel like a tank in durability and weight. We think this is one of the best gaming rigs on the market right now and will take some serious thought by a competitor to try to beat it in performance or price.

Pros:

• $2,199 for up to 34FPS in Crysis and 15,628 in 3DMark06
• Built like a tank
• Comfortable keyboard
• Great touchpad
• Beautiful 18.4” WUXGA display

Cons:

• Weighs as much as a tank
• Laughable power consumption

Related Articles:

• ASUS G50V-A1 Review
• ASUS G50Vt-X1 Review
• ASUS N81Vp Review

 

second sentense.
it's not sli, it's crossfire.

 

Really? nice review. I honestly thought you were going to encounter problems like most members did in the W90 lounge.

 

sentence.
And yea, we don't want Nvidia parts on our ATI.

To post below, lol, that really made that paragraph funny.

 

under build and design, second paragraph, second sentence I think you mean cooling not cooking hehe although cooking might be applicable to. great review though and that is one beast of a notebook.

 

lol thanks

 

Kevin, out of curiosity, when did the unit hit your offices? Would you mind checking which BIOS it has? It seems remarkably trouble-free compared to the units that consumers have been getting.

 

Cons:

• The "4870s" use GDDR3 instead of GDDR5 resulting in cards that are really nothing more than 4850s with an extra 50Mhz on the clocks

 

^+1!

Nice review Kevin...just one thing-this is currently one of the most powerful gaming notebooks,but the "gaming" part of the review is very "small"-I would like to see how does 4870 perform in other games,how well does it OC,etc.

 

Really sweet review, and for people who keep complaining about the DDR5 time to let that go now its still a really powerful notebook for the money.

I want to see the G71 get back this Silver/brushed aluminum finish on the LID. Great notebook though.

 

woo! i want one!

 

nice review !!!!!!

 

man that thing is a beast. the 3dmark 06 scores seem disappointing with notebooks with 2 3870's getting 16000+ in the ocz forum

this thing really needs some better speakers like the x305 along with a qx9300 and a blue ray drive.

 

Not exactly a fair comparison.

 

you can configure it with both QX9300 and Blu-Ray

 

It's not a 4870 X2 1GB, it's Crossfire 4870's with 512MB per card. The difference is that on an X2 card it's actually 1GB of VRAM, with Crossfire (Like SLI) the 512MB does not stack, each card stores the exact same thing in memory.

Considering how a desktop 4870 1GB is a 10-20% performance boost at some resolutions over a 4870 512MB, you really ought to fix the review.

Also, regarding 3DMark06, maybe some of you haven't realized this yet but it's a CPU benchmark these days. It's worthless for reviewing a Crossfire (Or SLI) setup capable of 1920x1080 (or 1200).

 

That this is insane, if only they put in a desktop cpu.

Nice review

 

For those saying W90vp had problems--- that was true but only for the very first batch of notebooks and the problems were isolated to very few users and so far seems most are fixed (Asus replaced or repaired them).

New units seem to be problem-free and I guess this review is kinda proof of it.

And yeah 3dmark06 is more of a CPU benchmark as it increases dramatically over CPU changes haha, just like the guy that had a quad core at 4Ghz and got 20k 3dmarks.


The speakers thing left me wondering because the W90 users report amazing sound quality overall. Oh well, seems like an awesome notebook and I'm very tempted to upgrade to W90vp A1

 

Its actually CrossfireX

4000 series use CrossfireX 3000 uses Crossfire.

 

Because Asus is really going to give them a bad review unit.

 

Amen....also nice to see ATI throwing it's weight around more in the upper echelons of the market (where nVidia tends to trounce it)

 

Not bad... Very good performance - but that's just the score. 13,500 is the paired M1730 with X9000 @ 3.4GHz and an 8800M GTX SLI.

Will there be any real gaming benchmarks sometime other than Crysis? I don't want to just see scores. It only makes newbies go wow over the 5 digit figure.

Quoted for truth.

 

There are a couple of the 2nd/3rd batch with issues.

 

Oh my god Kevin why!

This is one of the worts reviews ever. Gaming laptop review?
There is supposed to be atleast 4 games with some benchies.
Temperatures, display quality, gaming benchmarks, build quality.
That is all that matters to Gaming laptop...

I hope you will do more benchies next time instead of PC Mark or CPU benchmarking which is absolutelly useless.

This site is supposed to be the best one! Dissapointment :-(

 

NBR.com is still the best!

I do agree there should be more gaming bnechies!

 

I don't know about you, but If it can run Crysis extremely well I am 100% certain it can run everything else. I thought it was a great review.

 

Man, I can't believe it either, Kevin. What were you thinking? Who cares if it can play Crysis Warhead at 1080p and 30+ frames per second at maximum detail settings?

Where are the benchmarks for DOOM and WoW? Heck, forget those. If you can't at least included the frame rates for Minesweeper I can't figure out if this laptop can play games.

 

I like the fact that the CPU can be overclocked, but I see very little else here that's worth a second look.

Also, call me fussy if you will, but I prefer an isolated inverted-T cursor key layout and a standard 4-column number pad. That arrangement on the Asus is a total mess. As a gamer, the 8 keys I find I use most are the wasd keys and the 4 cursor keys. If these keys aren't laid out properly or give good feedback it will not make for a good gaming experience. I'm constantly amazed why this is such a difficult thing for 17"+ notebook makers to grasp.

I think a Toshiba X305-Q706 at $2000 which offers far better speakers is a better buy in this case, and it's got the proper keyboard layout to boot.

 

Excellent review Kevin! The W90 is surely one heck of a notebook with probably the best aesthetics for a gaming rig. It's modest colors and brushed aluminum finish is much more desirable than the other Asus gaming systems IMO.

A few questions I'd like to ask.

1. Will you (or NBR in general) be utilizing 3D/PCmark Vantage anywhere in the near future?

2. Does the W90 leave room for a RAID setup?

3. Is there a sound manager that lets end-users tweak their audio settings to enable a better music/gaming experience?

4. Not really a question, but I believe the speakers are Altec Lanscing, not Harmon/Kardon as listed in the specifications.

Given that Crysis is the most graphically demanding game in the market today, it wouldn't hurt if you could try to extrapolate it's performance to other games' performances.

 

Nice review and pictures, that was a great read. I have suspended my judgment of this notebook until the official review. For $2,199 with dual HD 4870s and a rather powerful CPU, this unit is a good buy.

18.4" screen though, that's gigantic . . .

 

I'm thinking that as a benchmark we see how well high-end notebooks like the W90 do by throwing the forum software on there and pointing nbr domain to its IP. The graphics card would be tragically useless in helping to run a web server and database, but it'd still be fun.

 

Atleast it has 6gb of ram and the real version with the quad core will be out soon.

 

All benchmark issues aside, this info is plain wrong, and there's no averting that fact:

# ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4870 X2 with 1GB GDDR3 video memory

 

well,yes,but f.e. 3870 performs very well in some games but sucks in others. so I would like to know whether 4870 has that "problems" or not.

EDIT: I would love to see how well does W90 run GTA4

 

Bios build is Version 0502 Build Date 2/23/09, so rather new.

I will be running a few additional games over the weekend on the W90. COD5, GTA4, and a few others if I have enough time.

 

Thanks, Kevin.
My last response was actually directed to AndrewKW when he started the trash talk; nevertheless, I'm sure many (especially gamers) would appreciate the in-game performance tests as you proposed

 

btw,is does this notebook feel much bigger/heavier then hdx 18t?

 

First up is The Maw

 

Nice. I'm almost willing to buy this and try getting that glossy screen replaced with a matte (as foolish as that sounds).

 

Truly a feat of modern computing that a laptop can run this game.

 

I just find it hilarious that this notebook can handle Crysis at about 30FPS, but cant get more than 100 in The Maw

 

Can we really call this beast a "notebook"? It's more like a monster encyclopaedia!

John

 

just curious do they have quality 18.4" backpacks for giant 18" laptops elsewhere?

not looking for a freebie or anything with colors just plain black

thanks for the review!

 

Can call it a boat...matter of fact I hear before they ship out a W90 ASUS smashes a bottle of champagne across it's bow.

 

18.4" is not as much as you would think. My Tom Bihn bag could probably hold like 4 of them. You just need one with a bit more clearance around the thing then a tightly conforming bag.

 

I was considering writing a post on DTR talking about ASUS' amazing new All-in-one W90.

 

Aww, c'mon, I thought you guys are the ones that were aware that not all members of this site are power users . . . .

Anyway, I just felt that a few of the responses were a bit harsh, that's all, no offense to anyone, all right?

BTW, great review! Enjoyed it.

Really one helluva a powerhouse here, but full-sized DTRs are really not for me

 

not foolish at all, alot of people hate glossy mirror-like screens.

 

Well if you were the adventurous type you might want to look into removing the flush mount plastic surface over the panel, cut out around the perimeter then put it back on. That would kill like 80% of the stuff I dont like.

 

bump

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