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

That's the first time I see anyone change the casing of the AGA, great work!

Mind doing a guide or showing your build log?

 

I wish I had filmed it while putting it together....
I used 1/4 Clear Acrylic and designed it using Sketch-up and Layout.
The idea itself was to recreate the AGA but with more cooling and space inside.
There are 3 primary Noctua NF-F12 fans. The top fan blows out and both the front and bottom fans blow in.
The main board from the AGA sits 2" up from the bottom of the case itself, this allows for more airflow and no "hot spots". Also I added approximately 3" in width to the case to allow for additional boards if and when they come out.
I used a Thermaltake SMART M 650W 80 PLUS BRONZE Full Modular Power Supply SP-650M since they were much smaller power cables.
The whole project cost about $200 not including the original $199 for the AGA.
I'd be more than happy to share more info if someone is interested in building one for themselves.

 

I pre-ordered a ti and it should be here Friday or Sat. I'll post my findings on the bottleneck.

 

I wish I had filmed it while putting it together....
I used 1/4 Clear Acrylic and designed it using Sketch-up and Layout.
The idea itself was to recreate the AGA but with more cooling and space inside.
There are 3 primary Noctua NF-F12 fans. The top fan blows out and both the front and bottom fans blow in.
The main board from the AGA sits 2" up from the bottom of the case itself, this allows for more airflow and no "hot spots". Also I added approximately 3" in width to the case to allow for additional boards if and when they come out.
I used a Thermaltake SMART M 650W 80 PLUS BRONZE Full Modular Power Supply SP-650M since they were much smaller power cables.
The whole project cost about $200 not including the original $199 for the AGA.
I'd be more than happy to share more info if someone is interested in building one for themselves.

 

So simple question; Is it worth it? Or do you lose too much power from the card via graphics amplifying, mostly through cpu bottleneck?

 

Honestly I believe you lose like 8% through the bottleneck at least that's my personal experience.

 

Can you let us know how the GTX 1080 ti works out in the AGA? I have a friend who wants to buy my GTX 1080 so I would be be very interested to hear how it goes for you.

 

Sorry, I missed this! Thanks a lot.

 

Hm, Dell/Alienware need to provide an update for the AGA for it to work, no?

 

Maybe, but so long as there is a Dell ID for the GTX 1080 ti, it should work fine.

 

Thought I'd give an update as to my AGA issue, Alienware sent a replacement amp and cable, tested the new cable with the old amp no go, tested the new amp and cable my 1080 fired up no problem at all, i think the PCI slot on my old one was Dead on Arrival. just got it all plugged in and installing the drivers now.

 

Hi all, I'm sorry if these questions have been answered before but I'm currently looking at purchasing a Alienware 15 R3 with a 7300HQ and a GTX 1050Ti or 1060 (haven't decided yet) as well as the AGA. I currently have a GTX 1070 in my current desktop that would be going in the AGA until I purchase either a 1080 or 1080Ti. My questions are~

Is the AGA "hot pluggable" similar to the Razer Core where it can be plugged in and unplugged without shutting down the system first?

How are the bottlenecks (if any) from the AGA connection? I hear it's better than the Razer Core which is about ~10% less performance due to TB3. I know with the dual core processors like the 6500U and 7500U, the performance loss would be higher which is why I'm looking into the quad-core 7300HQ.

How stable is the AGA to use? I need a new laptop and I'm looking to upgrade and spend the extra money to switch to one portable machine. I want to be able to take the laptop with me but come home and hook it up to my home setup (3x 144Hz 1080p monitors, external keyboard, mouse, etc) without any issues if possible. What I mean is, I knew that things were a bit unstable when the AGA first came out, but how is it now?

How does the system handle having two GPU drivers installed? This is more of a curiosity thing. From what I understand, you have to uninstall your mobile GPU drivers the first time you setup the AGA or at least you had to in the past. Is it still like that?

 

No

About 6% when running Laptop display; almost none when driving external monitor

I never had an issue

Just plug in power on and instal new driver worked fine for me

Stay away from the 1050ti; not worth buying

 

Received my GTX 1080 ti today and threw it into my AGA and ran some benchmarks..
My old Heaven 4k Ultra Benchmark with my EVGA 1080 FTW was 1034
New Heaven 4K Ultra Benchmark with Nvidia GTX 1080 ti is 1567
So I have no idea if there might be some bottlenecking but....I'm not gonna complain with that increase!!!

 

The AGA is wired that when plugged in, it fully disables the internal geforce GPU. Thats why you cannot hot plug it.

But i do recommend getting a quad core I7,

 

I am just waiting for my Ti to ship, my Gsync 4k monitor should be here tomorrow, what temps are you seeing with the card?

 

Thanks guys, final questions~

I'm sure a reference card would fit in the AGA but do EVGA cards? I'm specifically talking about EVGA's GTX 1080 "SC" which I believe is around ~4.7" in height. I've hard that anything over 5" high can be difficult to fit in the AGA. I may end up buying a GTX 1080 Ti but that would also be from EVGA and I believe most of their cards are all about the same height.

I know that the AGA has four USB ports on the back but I also know that plugging multiple USB devices into the Razer Core actually can decrease the performance of the eGPU because the USB HUB steals some of the bandwidth going through the TB3 cable. Does the AGA have this same problem? I would be plugging in a powered USB HUB which has my keyboard, mouse, and Razer's "Firefly" mousepad.

When you have the AGA plugged into the laptop and you have an external setup plugged in, do you need to leave the laptop's screen open for CPU cooling or could I leave it closed on the corner of my desk?

 

Some non-reference cards fit, and I think EVGA's SC line fits as well.
USB ports don't drag down performance as far as I know (and from my testing), but I'm not sure why you'll be connecting a USB Hub to a GA's USB Hub.
No need to leave the laptop screen on. Just set your external monitor as the main and only display in Windows, and you're good to go.

 

The USB ports are wired individually so these do not affect the performance of the GPU itself. I actually plugged in an USB hub as well. WOrks flawlessly.

 

It really doesn't even matter. If using 1080 or 1080ti, all in game FPS will be over 60 anyway... so who cares if you loose 1 or 2

 

Hi, I have been in a week long struggle trying to figure out if it is worth me upgrading from my 1080GTX FE to the newer 1080 ti FE. I run a AW 17 R£ 980M with 6820HK. To go from the 1080 to the 1080 ti I would expect there to be a meaningful (20-30%) boost in fps/performance. Have you managed to compare games' fps between the 1080 and the 1080 ti. The reason I ask is that some people are seeing a marked increase in benchmarking software but not when they run actual games...not sure if this an optimisation thing or not.
To be honest I don't care about bottlenecking (like you said in your post) - it is all relative, so if I would get a boost from the 1080ti in the AGA on my setup when compared to the 1080 GTX then it is worth it.

 

i doubt many can give you an answer to that. just check benchmarks on other websites when they compare those cards in a desktop and decide from there. THer eis a bottleneck with the AGA but when using an external monitor it is very very very small. but around 5~9% when using the internal screen.

But unless you run in 4K it is not worth it to begin with.

 

Thank you for your reply. I use the AW17 R3 with the 4K screen. I do not use an external monitor so I would expect there to be a improvement on the laptop screen before I made a decision. I guess I will have to wait and see

 

Quick question as I've purchased the AGA during their "pi" day sale to be used with my 13r3 and possibly the 1080 TI.

When switching from the AGA to use the laptop gpu, what is the expected process? Power down both the laptop and AGA and then disconnect the AGA then power laptop back up and voila everything would be working off the laptop gpu?

And to connect the AGA for the first time you connect the AGA to the laptop then boot up both. I assume you get prompted to install updated drivers for the AGA gpu? And voila everything will work with the AGA GPU?


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You've got it pretty much down. However, i've never been prompted to install updated drivers. I just have the ones from the support site already installed.

There is also a button on the cable, but I never use it. I just power down prior to attaching or detaching. It was kind of annoying at first, but I've gotten used to it.

 

So, I got my 1080TI hooked up with my Graphics Amp. All scores were running on the same machine:
Alienware 17 R3
i7-6820HK
16GB RAM

Firestrike Scores:
With 980m 8GB onboard:
8314

With 980TI AGA:
13175

With 1080 FE AGA:
14913

With the 1080TI FE AGA:
16925

All scores are with my system stock, no OC.

Hope it helps!
Jeff.

 

That is very helpful - thank you. What pre-set and res were you running firestrike?
Thanks, Edd

 

Thanks webjeff, my Ti card should be shipping on Monday, can't wait for some 4k gaming.

Edd, it looks like the standard firemark runs (1080p I believe)

Just going to put up my numbers like Jeff did

AW 15 R2
6700HQ
970m

With onboard 970m 3gb: 7285
With 980 in AGA: 11832
With 980Ti in AGA: 14074
With 1080 in AGA: 15208
With 1080Ti in AGA: 17117

I will add some gaming benches tonight

 

Which brands of 1080ti are you guys using? I'm only seeing pre orders here in canada for the zotac ones and recall the zotac 1080s being quite long and wide :/.

One other thing I was curious about was the 1080 refreshes with the faster ram coming soon - will they tighten up the 30% Gap at all currently between the 1080 and ti models....thoughts?

 

I'm running the demo so I believe it's 1080p. I did test the AGA settings with an external display (Dell U3415W).

I got the Nvidia version from their website.

Crix, did you overclock any of those? Curious why your 980TI is 1k more than mine. Other than that, the other scores are similar.

Thanks!
Jeff.

 

I was using the EVGA 980TI FTW card, can't remember if I overclocked it or just let the boost clock do its own thing.

I had a EVGA 1080Ti on order from NCIX (paid in full on the 10th, as of the 17th it still hadn't shipped) But I did manage to snag a MSI FEcard and it should be shipping on Monday (fingers crossed)

And if not I will be canceling the order and waiting for the non reference cards to show up.

Cheers,

Chris

 

Just received my 1080 ti and hooked it into my new Alienware graphics amplifier and everything works great.

However I've noticed that my 13r3 will not go to sleep and I don't see a sleep option anymore when I click on the power icon. Also power plan options no longer show a sleep option.

Is sleep disabled when the current generation of AW laptops are connected to the AGA or am I missing something?



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I don't know about the newest models, but the Echo models (13 R2, 15 R2, 17 R3) had sleep enabled through a BIOS and Graphics Amp Software update. Would be surprising for them to remove that function in the newest line.

 

Yes when I was googling this issue it did seem like previous generations had no ability to sleep then this was eventually fixed. However I find recent reports of no sleep functionality with the AGA but not sure if this is for everyone vs me missing a step in the setup process preventing my machine from sleeping or sleep was somehow removed from the latest generation.



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Hi,

Does anyone know the pinout of the Alienware PCIe x4 cable?

 

Would someone please also post some real games numbers?

 

With my 13r3 and a AGA with 1080 ti, In bf1 at ultra settings and 1440p, I get anywhere from 80-100fps depending on what's going on. This is without an external monitor so I'm sure I'm losing a little bit of performance (only 17000 firestrike). With the internal 1060 I will get around half the fps with the same maxed out settings (around 9800 firestrike).

This is based on purely eyeballing the fps counter I had running during gameplay (using in game perf overlay draw fps command).

I picked up ghost recon as my free game and will give that a try within the next couple of days to compare.




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That's really interesting. It looks like it's worth getting one, now I just need to find the money
What cpu does your 13R3 have?

 

The Kaby lake version. Some might say the 1080 ti is only worth it if you plan on 4k gaming but I say it's worthwhile overall if you have the means.

Also performance will be noticeable better when outputting to an external monitor vs laptop monitor so I know that I have not experienced the full potential. I also have not attempted any overclockibg yet but don't think I will, I'm happy with the performance. Another benefit is that the CPU runs significantly cooler when not using the internal gpu by about 15-20* cooler.


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I made the mistake of buying a graphics card that is a bit too tall for the AGA. The other mistake I made was buying it from Newegg which was a replace only policy on GPUs. Its very likely that I will have to keep the card, so may have to mod the AGA in order for it to fit. I noticed that the underside of the AGA shell has some stupid plastic ridges that may be preventing the GPU from fitting. I'm thinking about cutting those out, but was wondering if anyone had any steps or guides on how to remove/re-install the shell. It looks like I should be able to remove the set of screws for the arms and the hinge, but figured i'd check here first.

 

I removed the cover as described and cut the tabs out with a dremel. If the card is really really too tall you also need low profile pci express cables.

 

Did some fun things with the Amplifier today just for the kicks and giggles.

http://imgur.com/a/1h8vB


Note : Too lazy to even bother OC the memory

 

hmm the 1080TI FE score seems a little bit too low than i expected

 

I had a 17,100 firestrike stock with my 13r3 and 1080ti so his looks ok to me. Keep in mind that there will be perf loss due to using internal monitor vs external and perf loss expected by virtue of using a laptop/amplifier vs a desktop setup.


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Hi - thanks for your answer.
I am very worried as my 1080 ti in the AGA (no OC) produces about 13,000 score on standard Firestrike tests. I have the 17 R3 with 6820HK. I really don't know what is going wrong Results are here

 

I think that is the full score not the graphics score you are talking about.

edit: just saw your link, your graphics score is over 20k, so it seems to be running fine.

Your physics score though is a tad low for the CPU. Here is mine with a 1070GTX OC'ed.
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/11413715

 

Hi, yeah.
The post I was replying too was in relation to the combined score as well - mine is so much lower. My graphics score is about 7K lower. not to mention my physics....with the same or even lower spec machines my graphics and physics scores are lower than they should be.

What is going wrong? Very confusing!

 

Just a thought, have you checked to see if your card is running at the expected peak frequency or if it's getting enough power? I think you can check using hwinfo.

Also make sure you have the latest drivers.




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I have GPUZ what is the expected peak frequency? And how do I use it to check if it is getting enough power?

Sorry - I am a bit of a noob at this.

 

Make sure you ahve the latest bios, because some limited the PCI speed to 1X instead of 4X.

The combined score is something you shouldnt look too much at. Just the physics score and graphics score. Make sure you use the latest 3dmark. Because previous versions had some problems with the physics scores.