*OFFICIAL* Alienware "Graphics Amplifier" Owner's Lounge and Benchmark Thread (All 13, 15 and 17)

My buddy had an extra noctua nf a9 laying around after building a desktop, so I decided to replace the front fan of the AGA. I never really found the power supply fan to be super loud but the front fan was a little underwhelming as far as air movement ( and honestly I was a little bored). The wire splicing wasn't as much of a pain in the ass as I thought it would be, but they are super tiny. I have the fan set to to blow air into the case and it is noticeably cooler.

 

My first 16,026 result on Firestrike (1080p) with my AGA and GTX1080 FE connected directly to TV
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/9221211

Displaying on the internal display only (hence going through the local Intel GPU) my GTX1080 manages a reasonable 14,877
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/9221465

Using Dell Alienware Bios 1.2.8 and also Nvidia GeForce Driver 368.69

I am happy with these improvements and they were achieved without using Throttlestop but using modest overclocking via MSI Afterburner of Core clock at +220MHz and Memory clock at +570MHz.

However, this first 16,000+ result is still well below what people have been getting on their desktops with the GTX1080 FE. I am certain it is not a throttling issue with the CPU (i7 6700HQ) which handles the GTX1080 load very easily without breaking a sweat. It's almost certainly related to the AGA and means we can't get up to higher scores people have been getting on desktops. I would say that with equiavalent CPU and GPU the performance (as measured on Firestrike 1080p) is around 30-40% lower using an AGA compared to on a desktop PC.

It means essentially that a GTX1080 FE via AGA is giving around the same performance as a desktop GTX980 reference card with moderate overclocking. Hence, the performance cost of the AGA is basically one generation of graphics cards or thereabouts (1080 FE drops to 980 Reference).

 

Not right, look at your graphic score. Even a heavily overclocked 980 can't reach that.

 

What sort of graphic score would be typical for a moderately overclocked GTX980 in a regular desktop configuration running a CPU similar in power/speed to an i7 6700HQ?

 

so does the alienware with an amplier with a gtx 1080 inside makes it an excellent laptop than any other brands out there? how's the cooling and the gaming performance? do i need an external monitor in order to play using the amp? im getting a new laptop and im kinda stuck with msi with gtx 980m sli or an alienware with amp and a gtx 1080 inside.

 

It's possible to use a desktop graphics card in the graphics amp, and to have that output displayed on the laptop's screen. There is a performance penalty for doing this: 5-10% for using the amp at all (due to the limited number of PCIe lanes used), and about another 10% for sending the output to the laptop screen.

The fastest single laptop graphics card is currently the GTX 980, which is a slightly down-clocked version of the desktop chip. The next fastest is the GTX 980M, which is between a desktop 970 and 960 in terms of power. (I'm ignoring SLI for now.) Even with a 15-20% decrease in its top speed, a GTX 1080 is way more powerful than either of these. I'm not sure how a 980M SLI compares, but could be similar to a 1080 in the amp.

Where the graphics amp really wins is in the future. Even if the 1080 is slightly slower than 980M SLI, next year's 1180 will be faster. And the year after's 1280 will be even faster than that. It's easy to update the card in the amp. It might be possible to upgrade the 980M SLI cards in the MSI, but won't be easy, and each laptop MXM card will be about a similar price to a top tier desktop card.

It's also worth noting that there are Thunderbolt 3-based versions of the graphics amp starting to appear. Razer's Core is the only one available right now, but others are planned. These could theoretically work on any Thunderbolt 3 equipped laptop (with a BIOS update), albeit about 5% slower than the graphics amplifier.

 

If you want to go the aga route it would definately be in your best interest to get an external monitor. You can play through the laptop monitor but there is a good deal of loss in performance. . I think its 10-15 percent or so. I have a 17r3 and I am running a 1070 on a 1440p 144hz setup and I am running max settings on pretty much every game. I am also able to max out my 6820hk at 4.3ghz since I am not using my 980m and temps are great. 73c max on cpu and 60c on the 1070. If you are looking for a laptop with a future I would recommend it highly. Threre is also talk of a new v2 aga that will use pcie 4.0 but who the **** knows if that will come through. If usb-c starts to sell I could see this becoming a real possibility, but who knows

 

It's strange, I see no performance hit at all using the GTX1080FE in the AGA on an AW 15xR2. What I did see was that in many games Fullscreen really means borderless windowed and actually fullscreen is "exclusive fullscreen" and *borderless windowed mode* takes a huge perf hit. But I saw this on the 980Ti as well.

My 1080 is performing exactly as expected. Which is to say, pretty underwhelming compared to the 980Ti SC+ that I pulled out. I had to overclock the 1080FE to see a nice improvement at 4k. With similar overclocks it consistently delivers about a 15% gain over the 980Ti which is just as expected.

 

Internal screen?

 

I'm currently using the AGA with a 1080 and a 24 inch 4k monitor. After a while windows becomes a bit laggy, have you had these problems? The lagging problem is when clicking on the windows start and the animation being laggy showing the apps. Also for some reason I can't see videos in full screen.

 

This is an Nvidia driver problem. It happens randomly for me as well so I tested for 2 days using an older driver from a couple months ago and guess what, didn't have the problem. Updated to the newest driver, issue comes back.

I quick fix is a reboot. This seems to happen when changing resolutions or force closing games etc. You can also try switching from the internal display back to the monitor via Display Settings in Windows. This has nothing to do with the AGA because I can repro it without the AGA even connected, just using HDMI out to a monitor from the laptop itself.

Alienware 15R2 970m.



Edit: For the video problems, this seems to only be a problem with videos in Full Screen mode, at least it was for me. Switching from Chrome to Firefox solved it for me (with manual install of adobe flash player from adobe.com). Even VLC had this issue but it seems to have gone away.


I've even reinstalled Windows 10 a few times over the last few weeks trying different drivers etc to pinpoint the cause. Everything comes back to the Nvidia driver. I've just learned to deal with it for now.

Oh sometimes waking the laptop out of sleep causes this problem too. and it ONLY affects an external monitor. If I switch back to the internal display, it's all smooth again. So no idea. Maybe a separate thread should be made on this so people can see it and offer a full solution if anyone has it.

 

This is the best we have been able to achieve using the 980 (desktop) MXM card. That too with bench clocks, no way to maintain these clocks for regular use.
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/13065995

The 1080 beats the snot out of this card with that graphics score.

 

Found it's an Intel driver issue, to resolve the issue I disabled the Intel drivers and since then all my issues have been resolved. No more windows animation lag or jerky response.

 

I haven't kept up with this thread much. I sold my 1080 FE last week for exactly what I paid for it (went past my 30-day return window and wanted to sell it before the custom cards came out and have it be worth less).

I have an EVGA FTW 1080 coming in the mail this week. I don't see many people posting about major issues like I've had. I can play all of my games except for 3, The Division, Need for Speed (2016) and Rise of the Tomb Raider. Are you guys with 1070/1080's able to get those 3 games to work properly?

 

I had the problem with full screen videos not show before I got the aga. I don't have the laggy problem though with Windows

 

I play the division and don't have problems with the 1070

 

Where did you get the FTW from? I have been searching for this!!!

 

Can confirm with your findings. Disabled the Intel 530 and issue hasn't come back. A+. Must be a switching problem between intel and nVidia with a certain driver set. I even installed the intel drivers from intel directly. Same issue. It's weird it doesn't happen with older Nvidia drivers though.

Oh well. Excellent find.

 

I set up txt notifications on nowinstock.com, ended up being available yesterday on newegg for 6 mins lol

 

Alienware 17, i7 6820HK, GTX 980m, 16GB RAM.

Just dropped an EVGA GTX 1070 SC into my machine. No overclocks on either the GPU or CPU returns scores around 12,500.

A long time ago, I had a desktop machine with an i7 6700K, 980 Ti, 16GB RAM, and it clocked 17,000.

This seems a LOT more than a 10% reduction in performance that everyone's saying the AGA suffers from. Am I doing something wrong? Is the driver support just not there yet for the 1070+AGA? Or should I expect this number not to change for the foreseeable future?

'Cause I'm not totally sure if going from 7,000 to 12,500 is really worth the $650 I spent on this card and the AGA…

 

Is that the total score or the graphics score? The 5 to 10% is through the graphics score, not the overall score given that the overall score factors in the graphics, physics, and combined score.

 

Location Date Local Time Activity
Kitchener, ON, Canada 07/13/2016 6:00 Out for Delivery


Waiting for my Gigabyte GTX Gaming G1 1070 card. I'll post pics, scores hopefully later tonight.

 

This may seem a stupid question but how do I run a benchmark score? I googled firestrike but it seems I have to pay for it through 3dMark? is that the case?

I installed my Zotec 1070 this morning and all seems to be working ok at the moment, strangely enough I didn't have to download any new drivers, which I thought was quite unusual.

 

Also I have mine connected upto an external monitor via HDMI, everytime I start up my Alienware laptop I have to select the external monitor on the settings, is this right?

Sorry for the dumb questions I'm fairly new to all of this.

 

Also I have mine connected upto an external monitor via HDMI, everytime I start up my Alienware laptop I have to select the external monitor on the settings, is this right?

Sorry for the dumb questions I'm fairly new to all of this.

 

Got my 1070 Strix non OC sku yesterday, here is what i got in firestrike on my 15R1 first run :
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/13152245

Seems alright for the older processor, a good upgrade on the 970m, doubled the score in 3dmark.

Now I need to find a Dremel to close the hatch...

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bzj6JjnAJZjjbDV3TnJVV3NxdWM

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bzj6JjnAJZjjZ0hVR2xON1pYdW8

Fits without issues and works fine!

 

So the 480 watts from the stock psu is enough to run the 980ti-1080?
I just got mine and when I start playing a game I hear it buzzing. Is that normal?

 

I'm thinking to get Gbyte 1080 G1, thanks a lot!

 

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/13175345

With no overclocking, BIOS 1.2.8 and external monitor via HDMI.

Pretty happy with it for the money. The Asus Strix 1070 seems to perform a bit better on it's own but the $80 (cnd) in savings still made this worth it to me, plus free shipping!


Overwatch on Epic, yada yada with 100% render scale at 1080p, I get 150+fps most of the time. That's pretty awesome. The 1080 should perform even better (duh) lol but if the dimensions are the same, yes, it will fit 100% without cutting or modding.

 

THat buzzing is probably coil whine. A lot of graphic cards have that when being under full load.

 

Thank you for your response. Is there any case mods out there for this and I go to Cpu-z and main board it says graphics interface but it says max support x0, is that normal? Bios 1.2.14

 

Use 1.2.8 instead. Actually they've removed 1.2.12 and 1.2.14 now.

 

i recommend to use bios 1.2.2.

But cpu z can only read your gpu when it is active. Try to use gpu z and run a game. Coil whine is almost not to fix. You can look it up on youtube if the buzzing is similar.

 

Managed to run my 1st Firestrike Benchmark,

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/13181739

Results seem a bit low I'm thinking? Any ideas why?

 

Matches my run with the Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1 Gaming edition. I get 12804 ish on the test. There is a performance hit due to the cable connection. If anyone can get higher with the 1070 I'd be surprised, unless we are all missing something.


I found as well that the Gigabyte software will not recognize my exact model card as GPU-Z reports it as "DELL Nvidia GTX 1070". The software is looking for Giabyte specifically. Anyone else run into the same thing?

 

What's funny is my car only has coil whine when running games with Vulkan API such as DOOM. If I switch it back to OpenGL, the whine goes away lol

 

I only have it in select games. For example Overwatch triggers it. But The Witcher 3 doesnt. THe load and frequency just changed and only a certain range triggers it. It is literally electronic vibrations you can hear.

 

Ah yeah, I just ran a test without the AGA and 1070, and only got like 6400 on my 970m so that's a pretty massive improvement.

Out of curiosity what sort of score would you get from a desktop with similar specs?

 

From what I have seen online, north of 14500. Some benchmarks actually show 16,000+.

 

Ah cool, so it's not a massive loss in performance then over a desktop?

 

Depends on what you consider a huge loss. I consider it a pretty substantial loss to be honest. It doesn't matter much now, but say in a year or so when more demanding games come out, you might notice it being a loss. I dunno. I'm honestly just considering building a PC and putting my card in it and sell the GA at this point. The more I mess around with this setup the more unstable it is.

Problems so far with the Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1 Gaming in the GA:

1. FireStrike, default settings at 1080p: 12804 (Other benchmarks online are 14500+)
2. Link Speed, PCIE 4x
3. Cannot overclock, every app I've tried caused the Nvidia driver to crash.
4. Gigabyte Xtreme Software for the card cannot detect the card so the software can *only* control the fans.
5. GA weird power on/off during initial bootup (see other thread on that).

 

The only weird things I get is the corsair keyboard I have plugged into one of the USB ports does not like to always shut down. And on some games (or just battelfront) it will glitch once and a while.

 

Hey everyone,

Has anyone heard any news about the promised AGA driver update from Dell? We need something soon, now nearly 3 months since the 1080 came out but still no update from Dell for the AGA to enable its full power in the light of the new nVidia and AMD cards.

I am happy with my new NVidia drivers but we really need a Dell update.

http://en.community.dell.com/owners-club/alienware/f/3746/t/19982739

(look at:
Posted by meer84
on 30 Jun 2016 4:37)

 

It looks like a 1.2.15 BIOS is in the works. Check out the link in this post: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...17-r3-bios-1-2-14.792528/page-5#post-10295855

I don't know if it'll fix the issues with the GTX 1080, but if someone is feeling brave, it might be worth a look.

 

Hi guys - been lurking here a while. I just wanted to chime in with AGA experiences thus far, and a question to anyone knowledgeable about DX12 multi-adapter.

So far, with the Asus GTX 1070 stuffed in the AGA, I've run into surprisingly few problems. None in fact. Well, actually, the fact that it does only pull 12000 in 3DMark, rather than the posted average 14000 is probably the only thing. But seeing others with the same prob gives me reassurance.

Anyway, what I was wondering: the 970m is a beefy little dedicated GPU, likely able to get 4000 in the same 3DMark test (maybe 1/3rd the push of a 1070, or slightly less). But, that's a whole 33% bump if some games use the multi-adapter capabilities. I just downloaded 3DMark's Time Spy to try it out (as it has a multi-adapter test) - but to my dismay, it appears the 970m is completely disabled or uninstalled, when you use the AGA and reinstall the Geforce drivers.

I'm about to fart around with it, but I wanted to see if anyone has any insights or suggestions.

 

Ouch.. only 1500 on Time Spy:
http://www.3dmark.com/spy/50801

Yet, these two Alienware users with the same rig have much higher scores:
http://www.3dmark.com/spy/31528
&
http://www.3dmark.com/spy/34435

What gives?

 

If you have Intel SpeedStep disabled in your BIOS, go re-enable it since it will prevent your CPU from Turbo Boosting. I totally forgot about this and managed to get another 1000 points roughly on FireStrike.

I'll run the TimeSpy benchmark now and update this post.


http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/13307494

5 504


Gigabyte 1070 G1 Gaming - Stock Clocks, BIOS 1.2.15, Latest nVidia Mobile Driver, 1080p External Monitor

 

Well, I checked this out - but SpeedStep was never disabled. HOWEVER, the simple act of rebooting seems to have remedied the situation. So I'm wondering if my graphics driver tanked at some point, recovered, and I just forgot to reboot to get a clean start.

Now, it looks more like this:
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/13310603

But, say, Scott, why do you figure my card is running at a lower memory clock rate? In fact, by the looks of the results, it's running at not only half the speed as yours, but half of what it shows in the specs for this card. (Though, GPU-Z shows it's fine, at 2002MHz) Hmm.. still.. progress!

 

Do you guys know which 1080 card that fits and preforms best in the graphics amplifier?


What do you recommend me buying? Im looking for the best possible performance.