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

Once you have a 120-144hz gaming monitor w/1ms response time, plus run 1080p I don't think it's important. I have never noticed any screen tearing, even with my standard 60hz 17r4 display. But heh, if you think it is worth it, go for it, lol!

All non-VR games/apps at 1080p run around 2x higher FPS w/AGA and 1080ti. But, even with just my internal 1060, using an external gaming monitor, FPS are all very good (stable and consistent). just adding the external 1080p gaming monitor without the AGA resulted in ~10% higher performance for me.

Higher demand VR games/apps, like X-plane 11 work fine (stable and consistent) with my Oculus rift but the increase in performance using the AGA w/1080ti is nowhere near as high (~15-20%). Still, a significant improvement for me though. Just not the greatest investment I've ever made imho.

 

Did you compare the numbers @ 4K vs 1440p vs 1080p? Good to know that the 1060 gets a slight improvement via external. Down side is the heat which is another reason why i am aiming for the AGA currently. Was thinking Ti for the new upcoming Call of duty 4 title but I am sure with a 1080 i should be well in the 100's with a High/Med mix.

 

There's no point getting freesync unless you have an AMD graphics card that supports it.

 

I have not compared 4K or 1440p because any resolution above 1080p with my 24in gaming monitor is not worth it to me. Of course, higher resolutions will drag down the performance of any system.

You are correct, one big advantage using the AGA is cooler laptop temps since you are not using the laptop's dGPU. However, with my 17r4 those temp diffs are minimal (maybe ~5degC). Might be more important with the newer 17r5 though, who knows. Also keep in mind that the AGA fan is a bit louder than the laptop fans.

 

5 degree difference ouch. Others reported way higher (AW 13 R3). At higher resolution it utilizes the GPU a lot more. Makes no sense playing at 1080p with a Ti you are basically bottlenecking it @ that res for (nonVR games)

 

If you have a G-Sync laptop, the dGPU in the laptop stays on and is still working to power the laptop screen so you will not get as big of a temp drop in the laptop with the AGA vs a non-G-Sync model where the dGPU is completely turned off.

 

Guys, hello. I have another problem, dropping frames in Mafia 3 and The Witcher 3, i have good frame rates but the dropping is killing me. I only want the frames to settle.

 

turns out this only happens when devices are connected to any usb port on the amplifier itself. No problem if devices are only connected to the laptop itself...

I assume this is maybe due to the power supply not having enough power to feed both the GPU and USB ports?

 

It has 150 watts for the USB ports alone.... That shouldnt be the issue.

I never had issues with it myself by the way. Had harddisks, controllers etc connected at it. Worked flawless.

 

I don't think it's usb power issue. Probably more a usb 3.0 bandwidth issue (less of an issue with usb 2.0). I only plug my Oculus Rift 2x sensors into the AGA's usb and my Rift usb into my laptop usb 3.0. Otherwise I tend to get the odd disconnect. I also find that it helps to avoid having unnecessary usb devices all plugged in at the same time.

 

weird, this is even the case even after a fresh windows install too...

 

you said 86 °C while playing. dont forget nvidia boost 3.0. i am thinking that the card get to hot and it throttle the core frequency to keep it cool, that is why you are having frame drops.
i suggest you a repaste with TG kryonaut or conductonaut. i repasted my 1080ti aorus xtreme with conductonaut. i dont have frequency drops anymore and the temperature is really low

 

86 with overclocking, but even without overclock the game drops alot of frames.

 

It all has to do with thermals. Get that in check and everything works as intended.

 

86 is too much. for example my 1080ti is able to do 2050mhz while gaming without any problem or drop BUT the temperature have to be less than 56°C. which is really easy because of the repaste with conductonaut and the massive cooler that the aorus extreme have

 

@LastWord do you have to do something, repaste (first) this will help you a LOT. but dont forget that your gpu only have 1 fan and need air from the outside, so maybe do you need to mod the case and add an intake fan. i made a mod to my amplifier to fit my 3 slots aorus extreme

 

I'm selling the AGA and the alienware laptop and buying a PC, this is better for me. I'm very disappointed in the AGA

 

Just a bad unit. Worked fine for me and many others fortunately.

 

To be fair mate, I also had some issues getting it working right, but it's perfect now!

 

you bought the worst reference of GTX card. 10 series founders edition are the worst on thermals

 

I just got a Nivdia GTX 1080 FE. If this is the case I am going to return it and get something else. Anyone have this card can you comment on temps

 

that card run TOO HOT. that is why the frequency drop and your frames too
try by manually setting the fan speed to 100% on msi afterburner

 

Then I will return it and get different card. What card are you using ?

 

gtx 1080ti aorus extreme.

 

Reference based boards are the only ones that fit. The FE cards are fine as long if you dont overclock them. Around 80c is nornal. I had an EVGA ftw board for example and even thought its better. I had to use modded low profile cables and had to cut out a few plastic tabs to make the card fit with the lid closed.

 

Hey guys,



Based on the video above, the AGA cannot perform on par with desktop setup? Is this true?

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

There's a lot of non-reference cards that fit - I have a Gigabyte 1080 G1 Gaming that fits fine - it's just the super tall cards (typical of 2 fan setups) that tend to be mighty tall and won't fit without modding.

 

Yes, and has been mentioned many times in this thread. There's a slight performance hit because the AGA only has 4 PCI lanes but this is <10% performance loss compared to desktop. That performance loss is greater if you're using the AGA to game on the laptops built in screen.

 

Does anyone know if: Zotac NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11 GB Mini

fits and works ok inside the AGA? Looking to upgrade from my Founders 1080.

Thanks in advance ))

 

Thats a reference PCB with a custom cooler. So in the end the dimensions dont really surpass the FE cooler. Same goes for the EVGA superclocked editions.

But the MSI Gaming boards, Asus Strix boards, EVGA FTW's, Palit/Gainwards, Zotacs all dont fit.

 

He is making multiple errors, using the itnernal screen and it seems he is using the 15R1/17R2 based Alienwares. There were a couple of bioses for those models that limited the AGA PCI express speeds to 1X by accident.

 

Too tall if you want to close the lid. All of the 1080 ti cards will fit if you a) prop the lid open or b) cut a hole in the lid

 

Even the 1080Ti Mini? I thought it had a really small form factor.......worth a try?

 

I am getting my AGA today so I will try out the card to see how it works. Check the thermals and see how the cooling it. I don’t mind if the card goes to 80C or little bit higher just as long as it doesn’t throttle performance. If it does I will return it as get the 2 fan EVGA 1080TI one

 

Got bored last night and ordered parts to watercool my 1080 Ti in my AGA, will keep you guys posted.

 

lol. Bored buying sprees are the best ones!

 

I was bored when I ordered AGA and graphics cards during lunch.

 

Started out as, get a new card and WC that, but I toned it down and found the elusive only FC block for my weird Asus card on AliExpress. IDK why the hell Asus made a NEAR reference board for the Turbo but also made it NOT reference so no normal FC blocks can fit.

 

It's not mini - it's just not a full length GPU. If you look at a picture of it you'll see the height of the card extends over the top of the PCI bracket - making the tall too card. The clearance over the PCI bracket in the AGA is about an inch IIRC.

 

If you made a how-to thread I'm sure it would be quite popular. If you have a Dremel and basic tools it shouldn't be too hard to hack watercooling into the AGA, so I'm excited to see how this plays out!

 

Planning on a 2x120mm camped out on top similar to the one that was linked earlier in this thread. Just aint room inside for a rad. Thinking I will throw quick disconnects on the GPU lines to keep it modular for future upgrades

 

Updated the amplifier drivers. Plug in the card and I get power to amplifier. The GTX 1080 gets power as the GEForce lights up. I check device manager and it no longer shows my GTX 1060 but it is showing Microsoft basics display adapter with a triangle alert


Any ideas. This is so frustrating. I thought it was plug and play

 

It IS...just once you've got it working! I personally didn't have any issues but have seen a few other posts here and there of folks running into problems. In your case it definitely sounds like driver issues / improper installation of nvidia software/drivers.

For what it's worth - I've done a clean OS install and the AGA (and connected display) started working as soon as I installed the latest nvidia drivers - I don't believe I had installed any of the Dell stuff at this point. Keep at it; don't give up. Once you sort it out it's definitely worth the trouble.

 

Got it. I had to goto GE force experience to update the driver. It would not let me do it manually on device manager. Once I updated the GTX 1080 card and rebooted computer, everything is working. Now it’s time to play with settings. Thanks for help

 

Do you have access to another card to put in there? It’s possible that card has faults.

This is a really tricky thing to troubleshoot via online forum posts. I wonder if Dell tech support can help? They may have folks experienced with this - my understanding is they have test systems to play with and use.




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Holy cow. The CPU and PCH temps are so low now with external amp! Core temps are hovering around 52-53c and pch is 43c! External GPU temps are 59c. I don’t see this card being hot like some stated ? I have repasted with kryonaut and undervolted GPU to 875ml.

 

Got it to work. Look at this temps. OMG.
On ultra settings but at 1080p. Temps on laptop are unreal like I am surfing the web but yet I am gaming on it! Love it.

Solid 60FPS and NOT one single drop on the FPS. It is pinned on 60 on every game so far on ultra settings at 1080p.

The temp on External card Nivdia GTX 1080 FE are not bad at all and I am not seeing what some say the card runs hot. So far it hasn’t gone above 63-64 in all my games

 

Awesome, congrats!

 

Thanks man! So far I am quite impressed with the amplifier setup.

 

Great numbers. Wondering how you're able to get 3.8 on almost all 4 cores I thought hqs were locked?