During CES 2008 ASUS presented their forthcoming gaming laptop: C90P. This will be a high-end laptop that will allow overclocking by simply touching a button. It is not only that: it will use regular desktop CPUs, making it easier to install and upgrade the processor (the product is based on Intel CPUs), lowering the system cost (as desktop CPUs are traditionally cheaper than mobile CPUs)  and allowing faster CPUs to be installed (as usually very high-end CPUs are only released for the desktop market). Sounds interesting? Read on.

This notebook will be sold in the US as a barebone system, where you (the system integrator of your choice, actually) will need to buy and install the CPU, the video card (this laptop will use nVidia’s MXM module), memories, hard disk drive and optical drive, allowing you to have a fully customized gaming laptop, almost like one would get with a desktop PC (the only limitation is with the video card, as only very few models are available using MXM modules – this laptop only accepts up to GeForce 8700M GT). In other countries ASUS will sell C90P already built.

On Figure 1 you can see ASUS C90P closed. It measures 14.45” x 10.55” x 1.34” (36.7 x 26.8 x 3.4 cm) and weights 6.83 Lbs (3 Kg), which is not bad at all for a high-end gaming notebook. On this picture you can see the cooling system at the rear side of the unit (see also Figure 2) and its 2 Mpixel webcam. According to ASUS its black finishing resists better to scratches than regular laptop housings.

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Figure 1: ASUS C90P.

On Figure 2 you have a closer look on the cooling system. Since this is a high-end laptop using a regular desktop CPU a lot of attention was given to the cooling system. We will talk more about this later.

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Figure 2: Cooling system used by ASUS C90P.

On the rear side of the laptop you can also find two USB 2.0 ports, as shown on Figure 3.

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Figure 3: Rear view.

On the front of the laptop you can find an 8-in-1 card reader, capable of reading MMC, SD, Mini SD, XD, MS, MS Pro and MS Pro Duo formats. The speakers are also located on the lower front part of the laptop, as you can see on Figure 4.

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Figure 4: Front view.