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

I've done that using geforce experience, should I do safe mode uninstall?

 

Did you install the latest AGA software from Dell? There was an updated version not that long ago.

I would do a complete uninstall of all Nvidia software and drivers and fully update all the Intel chipset drivers as well as the Intel graphics drivers. Once completed shut down your system, connect the AGA, and boot up and you should be good. Not sure if you were already aware of that but the AGA isn't something that can be connected / disconnected while Windows is up and running without a reboot. If you *do* connect it while Windows is running it should notify you a reboot is necessary.

 

Can you suggest the best bang for the buck 1080ti card out that will utilized AGA dimensions and fit properly and cooling will be maximized. I know the new cards EVGA hs 3 fans but don’t know if air flow will be optimized in such a small body of the AGA

 

https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce...8&qid=1538432460&sr=8-7&keywords=evga+1080+ti

Any card that's raised like this or more is going to have issues with the lid closing. Unless you want to modify the case you don't want anything that extends more than 1" over the top of the PCI bracket mount so the 5.5" tall cards are too tall if I recall correctly.

 

If all is now ok I would just stick with this driver. No need to update them very often imho. I am also using 398.82, no problems. Actually I recently had a Dell support guy tell me that this was the best driver for the AGA. If you have problems with this one maybe try the latest drivers from Dell Support for your 15r1.

 

You are best to use a foundation edition (FE) card (single blower). These fit best (less than 5in height). I use a Zotac gtx1080ti Blower and it works great and its blower plus the AGA fan seem to keep temps below 70deg C. It is still the least expensive 1080ti in my area (Australia). You will need to shop around in your area.

 

Recommend me a 1080ti model please if you can. Thanks

 

riiiiight, time to do this fresh install though I was just playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider and it was running absolutely fine, but I'd rather do this to rule things out...

Firstly, I find Dell's website a bit off, I'm never sure if I'm in the right place for the up-to-date drivers... so firstly would one of you fine ladies and gentlemen mind confirming this is the right page for me?

https://www.dell.com/support/home/uk/en/ukbsdt1/product-support/product/alienware-17-laptop/drivers

Also this is the page for the Alienware amplifier software (but the update date was 2016) so would someone kindly point me in the right direction for the latest drivers?

https://www.dell.com/support/home/uk/en/ukbsdt1/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=33pdn

Now 2 more questions...

1. Whats the best way to uninstall? Display Drivers Uninstaller or good old remove programs?

2. Whats the best way to uninstall/update the intel sides of things too?

Lastly if anyone is interested, I'm using EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 it's a dual slot card with 2 fans which seems to fir perfectly within the housing.

Thanks all in advance!!!

 

That is nice but very pricey.

 

Just go to support.dell.com and enter your service tag. You may need to select your country if you are not in North America and if it doesn't reroute automatically.

once you enter your service tag all the available downloads for your model will be listed along with a method to filter and organize them. Note, just because something is listed does not mean it is applicable to your hardware config. This is the best (and only) place to go for Dell drivers but I go straight to Nvidia for their drivers as the ones Dell has tend to be way behind.

 

Thanks, managed to find it all in the end, removed the old HDD and replaced it with a Samsung 850 pro 2TB - so downloading all the games again - hopefully it's all nice and stable now, seems fine so far.

Noticed something called A-Volute sound something or other that wants to start up, it seems like its related to Dell and isn't coming up as malware - anyone what it is?

Thanks

 

That’s the 3D Sound driver - you can let it run and do its thing.


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Hi rinneh,

I tried that lately, but it just does not work. The dGPU GTX1070 is still visible in the device manager. When I selected "second screen only" one of my three displays disappeared, while the internal display froze with boot screen (Alienware logo). However, the computer itself was working just fine. So far, I am really disappointed of the R4, it worked flawlessly with my 15 R2... Does anyone have any further suggestions?

 

Okay. Ordered AGA with GTX 1080 founders edition. Can’t wait.

I was at Best Buys and guy told me he had two RTX 2080 that customers returned. Ask him reason why he did not know. Hmmm


While I am waiting for the AGA, I opened up the Ndvia GTX 1080 FE to repaste it with Grizzly Kyronaut. To my amazement the stock paste was dried and there was very little paste used. I have no doubt if I didn’t open to check and do a repaste this card would have run hotter than normal. I have been checking out YouTube videos and on some Ndvia GTX 1080 cards I see the copper heatsink contact pad but on mine there is what seems to be aluminum contact. Is this aluminum or is it nickel plated ? I want to use Conductonaut but when I opened it up I was honestly expecting copper contact.

 

Hi guys, I'm using the AGA for a month or so and got a 144Hz 1920x1080, i have gtx 1070 in the amp and i5 6300hq alienware 15 r2, but the perfomance is not what i expected, i have 60 frames on ultra (most games). But the frames is dropping alot. I tried everything.

PS: the results are for overclocked gpu (+189 MHz Core, 450MHz for Memory)

 

When you say 60 frames on ultra is this with VR or standard HD flat screen? Also, how much onboard memory do you have?

Maybe check task manager and see what your cpu and gpu %'s are.

 

Without VR, FHD Curved screen samsung cfg70

16GB Memory

 

Make sure you are only projecting to your external monitor and that your external monitor is plugged into your AGA's graphic card, preferably it's DisplayPort.

 

I'm already doing it my friend, plugged in displayport, turned off the internal laptop monitor!

 

Maybe try a diff nvidia driver. I'm finding 398.82 works best for me. Best to run DDU in safe mode to clean up older drivers before installing.

 

I did that too, i tried the dell driver for my notebook and 398.82, the same results in any of them. Is this a bottleneck problem?

 

Could be that your i5 6700 2.3ghz maybe somewhat limiting but I'm not really sure. Again, have a look at task manager while running a game and see what your % cpu and gpu usages are. Also, try to see if you have other processes running that may be hogging resources.

What kind of performance diifs are you seeing compared to without your AGA?

 

I'm at work right now, I'll have a look at the task manager when i get home.
I was only playing Dragon Ball FighterZ on max settings 1080 (gtx 965m 2GB GDDR5) and it gives me 60 constant without any drop (it's now dropping like hell, even on in the internal gpu).

 

Have you repasted your cpu? I would assume it might be throttling which can cause this. What are your cpu temps of your cores

 

I heard of repasting but i never tried it. I did not watch the temps but the laptop is cool though.

 

Download HWinfo64 and see what your core temps are while gaming and when you see these major drops in FPS Immediately check HWinfo64 and see the core temps.

 

I will try that. Thank you.

 

I am getting the AGA also within a week and if this doesn’t give me SOLID 60fps in all games on ultra setting that I play, it will be return immediately! So yeah I would not be happy if I were you.

 

Yeah, I'm not happy with it to be honest. The problem is I'm in Asia and ordered it from US, it's so difficult for me to return it!
I will try some things, i hope it'll work

 

Hey guys, thank you. I managed to get the good peromance of my AGA. It turns out that there was a malwares in my laptop (in google chrome to be exact) that uses alot of the cpu, so fps dropping fast. I uninstalled the drivers (with DDU) and clean install 398.82 Nvidia Drivers. The results i'm getting is good, most of the games gives me 60 and above on ultra (Dragon Ball FighterZ, Attack on Titan 2, The witcher 3). I'm playing with the overclocking and test the best for my card since it's founders edition card. Thank You again!

 

Good to hear it's working ok now. Thanks for letting us all know.

 

Thank you. I have a question though, is overclocking the Founders Edition cards safe?

 

I don't overclock anything so I cannot really say. Prior to overclocking check your GPU temps while running some games and see if you have a lot of headroom (say, below 70degC).

 

It's getting laggy sometimes, but the temp i reach is 86 deg in (Mafia 3) after half an hour of playing, gave 10 frames boost. is it worth it?

 

Seems a bit on the hot side to me but up to you I guess. Maybe you can play with something like MSI Afterburner and adjust the gpu fan speed curves a bit to get better cooling.

 

I recall with the Titan Xp and the 1080 Ti, they have a LOT of headroom - if you can get them cooler. FE is not going to be cool enough, a small Liquid loop could work wonders though.

 

Can i install liquid cooler to the gpu? And can i use it inside the AGA?

 

me again....

Can't work out what the problem is but basically games seem to take an age to start up, once they're working though - they run without a hitch. This problem does not show itself when the amplifier isn't plugged in, but all hardware tests show all hardware as fine.

I've done a fresh windows install to rule that out, but unfortunately the problem still persists....

All help appreciated!!!!

 

There would be modification needed to the AGA case most likely

 

Hey guys, fellow 13r3 users.
I've been using it for a year now.
Spec:
i7-7700hq
16gb
512gb
GTX 1060
I'm dwelling with the idea of getting the AGA to use it as a desktop setup. But I'm concern that the obsolesnce of CPU hence bottleneck which would be pointless.

Do you think it's worth getting the AGA now? How long do u think the performance will hold up?


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It's pretty straight forward to me: Do you want better in-game performance in graphics? If so, then get it and a 1070/1080. It's only $150 or so these days plus the cost of the GPU. If you're AW13 meets your needs and you have no desire to upgrade it then the AGA is a great way to expand its capabilities.

So only you can decide if it's worth getting it for you. Those of us that have one obviously think it was worth it to us and that's why we got it.

 

Does the 1080ti bottleneck on the AGA? Or does it perform similar to desktop setup?

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There's a slight performance hit on the GPU in the AGA because it only has 4 PCI lanes. For the most part this is minor and not noticeable but the beefier the card the bigger the percentage of loss compared to a desktop GPU. That said, the performance loss in the AGA is less than using a Thunderbolt 3 chassis for a GPU.

A 1080ti in the AGA will still beat out any other card below it.

 

Thanks for sharing. Im feeling that the device is a bit heavy. So it's either I sell it or keep it as my desktop setup.

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Your 13r3 is heavy? I guess that's all relative - compared to my 17 it's feather light but compared to an ultrathin gaming laptop it's heavy.

It's all about balance and what is important to you. I don't often take my laptop anywhere but if I did then I would probably get tired of the 17 mighty fast. Whatever you do - I'm sure you'll find some options that work for you and your lifestyle.

 

Ya. My laptop is my daily driver for work and personal. And wherever I go I love to bring my laptop with me. 13r3 has been with me for a year. I really like it but the battery life only last me 3 hours and the only thing else I can complain is the weight.

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You may like the new m15 that is coming out soon then. ABout 4.5 lbs with supposedly great battery life. And most importantly for this thread - uses the same AGA so if you invest in your AGA no you can continue to leverage it with at least one more laptop generation.

 

I have a similar spec 17r4 (refer to my signature).

My advice to you is to avoid the AGA and just buy yourself a nice inexpensive 120-144hz 24-27in gaming monitor (no need for gsync imho). Hook this up to your laptop's mini DisplayPort and select windows display settings to only project to it. You will notice a bit of performance improvements since the monitor will then feed directly from your gtx1060. I'm using an Asus VG248QE and it works great. So much nicer than using a dinky laptop monitor (even my 17.3in one). Your internal 1060 will run most games at 1080p very well and your current system should last you for at a few more years. Actually, it will also do a decent job running VR with an Oculus Rift (not so good with WMR imho).

While I do have my AGA w/1080ti running ok, if I had to do it all over again I would have just bought or built a proper gaming desktop PC for my VR games/apps (mainly flight and racing sims).

Your $'s so your choice of course.

 

Thanks man. I'll keep that in my.
I'm also considering the freesync monitor as gsync monitor is really expensive.
Really ? Those features are not so important? Recently, I saw Linus videos on Nvidia cards working with freesync with APU. I thought the freesync and gsync would have signnificant difference with monitors without those features.

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Can you define "Running ok" are your frames not stable & consistent ? Are you playing CPU or GPU intensive based games and @ what resolutions do you play at?