That sounds good, the only games that I really play are TFC/CS which I know this computer can handle flawlessly, my friends have gotten me into oblivion but I rarely play games such as that one.

You shouldn't need to overclock for those games anyway, so you will be able to game on your laptop throughout college assuming no parts malfuntion and you take good care of it. You may not be able to play all the newest and latest greatest... but all the games that probably matter to you, you will be able to play.

why drivers and etc from intel, not ati or asus?

Because Intel buy S96J from Asus and sell it to resellers and they provide support and warranty, but you can also downlaod from Asus website, they sahre the drivers.

3DMark 2005 score 4558 at 1024x786 using ATI Tools and Omega Drivers.
Core 505/Mem 468.
Default is 450/370.
Use this setting for benchmark only. Prey plays great at 1280X1024 w/high details using stock. I am going to try some games at native resolution and will report back.
This laptop has exceeded my hopes. Love the extra resolution.

Hi Mostlarge,
One question, I was able to overclock using Omega Driver and ATI Tool when I bench mark Z96J, but not anymore, all I got was black screen when I set the GPU speed using ATI tool, my quuestion is what version of Omega driver and ATI tool are you using? thanks.

Ken

ATI: Because they only release mobile drivers for a few manufacturers. They explain on their site that manufacturers do a lot of tweaking to the configuration so they assume no responsibility for making sure it all works.

Asus: Because this is under the Intel VBI umbrella. Intel is assuming the warranty repair for notebooks under this program so they'll be the ones issuing official drivers so that Asus doesn't bork a driver release and force Intel into handling the problems it might cause. (Realistically, I think we're safe using Z96J drivers).

As for gaming, when I decided on a notebook, I was accepting the fact that the hardware was going to determine what games I could and couldn't play. That was fine with me as there are dozens if not hundreds of interesting-sounding games already out that I haven't got around to playing that are bound to be just as good quality as anything else that's coming out. In any case, this is a very nice GPU and I wouldn't be surprised to be able to play almost every new game (with settings turned down) three years from now....especially is Merom increases performance as much as Conroe appears to.

Hey.. really impressive. both S and Z... I t kinda made my mind up at buying a Z... I wonder how are the benchs raised up because of the Omega Drivers... how does it works??

Anyways thanx again!

Thanks to Ken and GenTech I now have a working Merom Z96J. After just installing Windows and Asus CD drivers, I ran 3Dmark 5 and 6 at default settings. 3dmark5 = 4044 and 3dmrk6 = 1753.
I'll try the omega's too and report back.
I'm also working on a pictorial review of the barebones build process. Hopefully I can post that too.

Very nice...
How much didi you pay in your Merom processor... Im sorry to ask... curiosity...
Nice!

I got mine from the for sale forum here. You can find them for a little over $400 here or on eBay.
I tried the omega drivers and my scores are the same for 3Dmark5 & 6.
SuperPI is under a minute for 2M calc. 57sec

Merom Benchmark Updated.

Nice work Ken. Scores look right on. Could you also check your CPU temps and post them ?
I can't see your BIOS version on the screen shot. are you using the Intel 0901 ?

The CPU temperature is 51*C at idle.
You are right I am using S96J's BIOS 0901.

Is the J model the one with the lower resolution?