Sorry wrong link, the correct drivers page is here.

Is the heat a significant difference between the two models? I would like this as a portable workstation for XSI work. Can you take the laptop to any repair shop and have it repaired? This was the downside when i had a function sager since I was reliant on slow mail shipping repairs that didn't work.

Will the Z96J need the bios upgrade?

No it doesn't, at least not yet.

okay.... I haven't run 3dmark05 in a while, I had forgotten that it runs at the same resolution on all machines.

Well, they seem to be identical then don't they. And I should have known that because that would have made things too simple right Oh well.

Well.... I did have omega drivers installed before removing them and installing the ones on the Intel site. Maybe something lingered. However, someone else downloaded the intel ones and got a very similar score so...

*shrug*.

I wonder what ATI tools shows the clock speeds as on the X1600 in the Z96J

Krista

I just reinstall Omega driver and ATI Tools, check out my score.

OH ****! Thats a big ass increase. Are those the regular omega drivers? And should I install them on my beast right now? I haven't tried installing them yet. So far my score is 3951.

3951 is very good, you don't need Omega drivers.

I installed them, uninstalled them then installed intel drivers again and I got 3953 my first time running it, I havent ran it again, Im going to soon to see my score again.

I installed Omega driver and then use ATI Tool to overclock.

But there is a risk of damage GPU for the long run, I only use it to run the benchmark.

Well, any game takes a slight hit on resolution because it has more rendering. The S96J will slightly work better on some games because its native res is much lower - thus the smaller and faster render. The drop isnt much. Mabye a couple fps. But that all depends on the game really

When you sayh long run ken, do you mean like 4 years down the line or sooner? I don't really want to run the risk because i need this laptop for college. Or if I overclock it during games, then clock it back to its regular core speed when im done would that be fine?

and what temp is to high for the S? Mine idles at around 49-51 and when its really worked it goes as high as 56C.

Your temperatures are fine on it. You can't expect a laptop to last in playing games for 4yrs, especially not a 1300$ one.

DirectX 10 is just around the corner, with revolutionizing new graphics and more power hungry games than ever. People with 7900GTX and such as worrying they won't be able to play the new games. If you've seen any pics you'll know why. So I think you're having an unrealistic expectation. Especially since the technology of the X1600 is already nearly 2yrs old.

I've had my 6800GT in my desktop for about 20 months now, and it still beats the best gaming card for a laptop under 15.4". Which means laptop technology is still far behind desktops. I think 3yrs is the best you can expect out of a gaming card for a desktop. And hopefully about 2years from a laptop to play on Medium or acceptable quality settings.