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

Here are some pics. Alienware amplifier was original made for blower style graphics card but today card are all dual fan setups which this case is not ideally made for.

Pics 1-3 shows holes drilled all around the two GPU fans for air intake. It also show breathing holes for top cover as well as the bottom of the amp. It also shows I added legs to make the amp be off the ground at least 2 inches

Picture 4 shows I added 3 extra fans to pull air from the front of the amplifier. Power to run these fans were achieved by tapping the original fan wires in the front. I just ran them in series with each other. I replaced the original fan at the front of the amp with noctua fan and also added two more noctua fans line up in series with one another to pull more air. When you place your hand in front of the amp vents you can feel air being sucked into amp and not lightly but feel a nice suction!! I know many will say bla bla bla that is loud but actually it is not loud at all since I have the fans running lower rpms with noctua resisters that it comes with. I added another small little fan to pull air into the passive heatsink that sits between the graphic card and power brick. I added another little tiny fan to circulate the air on the left side of power brick. This card seems to have the lost heat on the back end of the amp and that’s where I want all my air flow to go. One fan in the front of the amp is NOT enough. The power brick has an exhaust fan which draws air out to the back of the amp. As we know there has to be a intake and somewhere to exhaust the hot air. So with the power brick fan which sucks some of the hot air along with the various holes drilled which allow the hot air to escape to the top of the case. Hot air rises as we know.

The last pic shows the little mini fan I was describing.

 

This pic shows the removal of the metal brace. That brace IMO doesn’t really give it any structural support. With it there all it did was retain the heat. With the removal of the metal bracket the temps were much lower. Believe it or not this metal bracket absorbs so much heat and doesn’t allow proper cooling. Plastic doesn’t absorb heat like metal!!

With all these modifications I know many will think I am insane but I spent $1300 for my graphics card and I want to keep it as cool possible as heat kills electronics. Before all these mods my graphic card temps would hover around 78-82 degrees with cover closed. NoW with cover it’s around 58-60. That’s a huge delta change!

 

Dam that's crazy. I wish I drilled holes all over mine before using it. I didn't even know it had vents on the bottom, I like the added feet and holes there as well. I never thought the stock fan was bad for loud compared to the default fan curve, but maybe I should really switch it. Maybe if I sell my 2080 for a Ampere I will drill some holes. Is that heatsink attacked to the back of the 2080ti? These are all good ideas though you've done. It's not like the AGA is expensive or has a crazy warranty anyway if something goes wrong

 

Exactly. The amp is really cheap. It’s the card that is expensive!

The passive heatsink just slides into that compartment. The card I am using Nvidia 2080ti with its dimension allows for a perfect fitment for one of those heatsinks that I am using. It slides In like it was made for it!! I applied some thermal paste to the copper contact and to the back plate of the card. It makes good contact and when gaming I feel the copper piping get nice and hot which I know is doing the job of transferring the heat off the back plate of the graphic card


You can still drill holes in the amp. Just take out the graphic card and go to town on it with a drill. Make sure to key in on the areas I have shown. Top cover and the side of the fans along with the bottom. The metal bracket removal is key. Make sure to remove it. It’s very easy. It held on by little glue and it snaps right off.

 

Here is about an hour of playing ghost recon Wildlands. FPS is set at 70FPS and high to ultra settings Get about 65-70 FPS. 2560x1440p. Image sharpening on nvidia control panel set to about 80%. Look at the temps!

 

That is really good temps, especially for a founders edition card. That's one thing I love about the AGA, it makes the laptops so quiet since the CPU and GPU aren't sharing a small HSF. I wonder if that whole plastic clear window piece can be taken out on both sides, that would keep it looking nice while also giving lots of airflow. I mean of course it can come out but I wonder if it can also go back in no problem, once its out

 

I tried to see what can be done with those side air vents but unfortunately they are glued in pretty tight and can’t be popped out. I suppose a dremel can cut it out neatly. Even if you cut out those vent panels, it still doesn’t clear the graphic card fans so you still would need to drill holes! I am not about cosmetics but about longevity of my graphic card, so although it’s not the prettiest case with all those holes I don’t care or see it as it sits on the floor on the side of my computer table. Either way good luck with your project if you choose to modify it. I just took a pic of gameplay of division 2 with everything turned on ultra. This is the highest temps I see after 2 hours+ of gameplay. I have it set to 75 FPS locked on 2560x1440p. The CPU is also undervolted by -.160mv also. These temps are so low it’s like basically doing normal light tasks of looking at YouTube, web surfing but playing a high end game! Love this amp setup.

 

Good morning all. I have a slight problem with AGA. As soon as I turn on the PC, it boots 1 to 2 seconds. It cuts off and then leaves to light up normally. It lights up every time normally but over time I fear it will get damaged. Have you encountered this problem? I have installed / reinstalled the graphics card and AGA drivers several times. updated software. Alienware 17R3 updated all drivers on the site. The graphics card is an RTX 2070 SUPER FE.

Thank you for your help

 

That's how it always worked for me on my 15R3 but on my m15 it only requires a single restart, or often times it requires no restart. I think it's just how the laptop was designed to turn off the internal GPU. Not entirely sure, cuz I've also just unplugged the AGA without shutting down the laptop and it continues to work fine (the 15R3)

 

Thank you for the reassuring feedback. I don't know if I was specific about the startup. When I turn on the PC it turns on 1 to 2 seconds, and turns off. At the same time, the AGA also turns on and turns off at the same time. Half a second after the set turns on automatically. I take no action. In short, the PC and AGA switch on for 1 to 2 seconds together, switch off and on automatically again together half a second later. I have a fear about the HDD which turns on, turns off and on again in the long term.

Thank you for your feedback

 

Yep my 15R3 did the same thing. I am not sure if it is supposed to, but I would assume if both ours did then its likely that is how it was designed. It has to be due to enabling that AGA port, since my 15R3 could never switch to the AGA if plugged in when already in Windows, it always required a restart. The m15 must have a change that allowed for enabling the port without a restart. Though funnily, it still isn't perfect. Haven't tried a m15r2 or a 51m but sometimes I do have to restart the m15. Sometimes the AGA blinks red and white (means it requires a reboot to work) but it still worked. Maybe they've perfected the AGA even more since those 2 laptops, but for now it works extremely well for its price.

 

Thank you again for your totally reassuring feedback! ... ALIENWARE does it right.

What a wonder this AGA! I stay on this brand for a future update.

My old ALIENWARE 17R3 from 2015 runs all AAA games. All Ultra options with anti-aliasing / alliasing at maximum always above 60 FPS. It's smooth and nice for 1080p.

Not bad for a 5 year old laptop which cost me € 2,500 over this period and to come ...

The RTX 2070 SUPER + AGA = Turbo on this 17R3. I was afraid of the bottleneck but finally I was surprised ... On all the last AAA titles in Ultra it runs at 65/80% CPU and 65/95% GPU maximum, it's cool.

However, I am not a Geek or a PGM.

thanks again

Long live ALIENWARE!

 

I was always curious of the performance of external GPU enclosures VS the GPU in a desktop. Since many of them show as much as a 30-40% GPU performance reduction through Thunderbolt 3. But when I tested even my RTX 2080 with the 7700HQ and the new 8750H, I only saw about a 3% performance drop when comparing benchmarks on FF15 4K Ultra. And when undervolting the GPU, you will even surpass that performance reduction and get higher scores than the desktop versions, even with the AGA. Of course, the desktop versions can also undervolt and overclock, but the point is the AGA offers a very slight GPU performance reduction while being very affordable but also effective.

I think you were talking about the 7700HQ (maybe you chose a better CPU idk) bottlenecking the 2070S, but yeah I also think many YouTubers and benchmarking tech websites exaggerate CPU bottlenecks. The worst part about a 7700HQ is the 2.8Ghz for 8core performance, if it could do 3.6Ghz on 8 cores it would be awesome. But 2.8* 8 is still very good. Its just trash for extremely unoptimized games like the Final Fantasy 13 series or for trying to use demanding emulators.

 

Totally agree!

No bottleneck and as a bonus: silence. I took the opportunity to put the CPU in performance mod in the bios. I was thinking of putting 17r3 in its entrenchments ...
Finally it almost never ventilates. The fan starts 5 to 20 seconds maximum, however it boosts non / stop when I consult the CPU history.

It's a rebirth this AGA when the PC is on a desk.

No noise, all charge well, good cool ventilated case, no noise.

Nothing to do when the PC was running with the GPU 980m: A real turbine!

There, everything is calm, fluid, quietly assuming the charge of pixels calmly and without noise.

I just changed the power supply of the AGA with a BeQuiet 600W 80 + Bronze and a front fan from the same brand.

In short: Silence and Performance.

ALIENWARE Top

 

That’s a really clean setup. Is that desk custom made? Almost looks custom fit for that setup. Nice work.

 

I should have bought a new PSU for mine as well a while ago, or at least during the holidays. Didn't think of it. A decent PSU can often be bought for 30-40$ on sale. Gonna have to look at a new fan as well maybe. I wish it was 120mm and not 92mm. Nobody has a good 92mm just laying around lol.

Edit: Has anyone tried fitting a 120mm fan in it? I am looking at pics of it and it seems like it could be possible to mod one in. Worst case scenario it requires breaking the stupid hinge that keeps the two pieces together which I remember being a huge pain to open in the first place. I am gonna wait for a PSU to be on sale since its not a necessity and when that happens I will open it up and check it out

 

[QUOTE = "Terreos, post: 10986675, membre: 243450"] That’s a really clean setup. Is that desk custom made? Almost looks custom fit for that setup. Nice work [/ DEVIS]


Merci de ton retour. Après quelques recherches, j'ai trouvé ce meuble pour accueillir le 17R3 et son AGA.

https://www.ubaldi.com/salon-deco/meuble/bureau/habitat-et-jardin/bureau-oracle-mdf-blanc-perle-noir-1-tiroir-et-1-porte-habitat-et-- - jardin - 57614--472909.php

 

I changed the power supply because the original one made an unbearable sharp noise when the RTX 2070S was fully charged.

So I took the opportunity to change the front fan too.

The set works well and in silence. the large fan in the power supply dissipates all the heat out of the case very efficiently. I never exceeded 65 ° on the GPU in full load after hours of games all graphics options to the max.

Edit:
I am aware that my GPU could heat up more when playing in 2K or 4K but I play in 1080p. On this configuration everything is fluid, silent without being a radiator.

 

I had always assumed the coil whine was from my GPU, since that is extremely common. But after seeing your posts and looking into a new PSU, I've seen others mentioned their PSU had coil whine. This noise is just as loud as the GPU and AGA fans themselves, I def need to get a new PSU then. I don't think I will go with the extremely expensive Be Quiet brand, even though they deserve their price. I was looking at a EVGA one that has a 10 year warranty but I am not sure after seeing the reviews. It's a bad time to go PSU shopping with all the major holidays having just ended a month ago.

I was actually bored and ended up opening my AGA last night, the front grill of the AGA blocks so much airflow and on top of the grill, it has a large metal piece also blocking about 10-15% of the airflow to the fan. I kinda just want to take all of that metal and grill out, but that also means removing the Alien LED logo. Does anyone know if the AGA continues to work fine without that LED?




Got bored again and took everything off the lid. There is so much ventilation space wasted on plastic and they melted plastic to make it glue together. Kinda dumb and annoying. But I am gonna try to melt it back off. Surprisingly my 2080 looks like there is no dust at all on it. But the vents and fan did block dust.

 

So I been taking apart the AGA and noticed something else dumb. Its a black plastic shell, with a copper colored plastic shell melted together with some silver colored plastic then melted onto the black and copper plastics lol. Still gonna try to attach a 120mm fan to the front of it, since I have a bunch of those laying around but don't have a decent 92mm laying around. Kinda seems like it would be a bit difficult to also keep the LED working without some kind of plastic standoff things for the screws/mounting. Does anyone know what size the screws are? I have no tools for measuring them nor do I even know how to.

Also, been running my AGA without a lid for a few hours the past couple of days. It went from 77C with lid (no mods) to 72C without lid (no mods). I'm sure this stock PSU is putting off a lot of heat for the GPU too, I have a new one coming to replace that.

 

good evening. I confirm that investing 70 € in a 600W 80+ bronze power supply and a 92mm BeQuiet fan is cool!
I tested for fun the RTX 2070S overclocking from this site: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER FE Overclocking - The FPS review
https://www.thefpsreview.com/2019/08/30/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2070-super-fe-overclocking/
Like them, the card is very close to an RTX2080, see better in some games. The temperature remains below 75 ° despite a relentlessness on Shadow of the Tomb Raider for example or everything is
all settings at maximum in 1080p!
We agree that an RTX2080 OC will do better.
But on the tests, the card does not heat like a radiator while providing margin on the OC.
In short, the BeQuiet power / fan combo allows you to have fun. I insist, while being silent and clean.
Really have the feeling that the power supply fan draws all the heat from the case and expels it out of the AGA. Helped by the fan before of course. If it can help

 

So I finished playing with my AGA, I don't have any temp results yet because this Noctua fan is louder than I thought (its been sitting around for 4-5 years) and I will not be using such a loud fan so the results are useless to me. When I get a new fan or add the little cable that lowers the speed I will check the temps to compare.

But here are the pics - https://imgur.com/a/sRTd4qU
Cut out all the BS from the front to make room for the 120mm Noctua fan.
Had to cut some of the metal from the rear grill to allow for the EVGA Supernova 650 G5 AC plug to be accessed.

Problems I experienced -
The PSU cables are so thick that the lid doesn't full sit down, see pic #5.
I used twist ties to mount the 120mm fan... because its effective, quick and not easily noticeable when it blends in with the black. I will cut them but I wanted them to be visible in the pics.
The Alien Logo LED is pretty easy to damage. I broke half the LED on it while trying to retain its usability. It does bright colors like blue, green, yellow, but it can't do dark colors since only one side of the LED is working.

Was it worth all this? Idk, I'll have to game tonight and see. As long as the obnoxious coil whine is gone, then it was worth it.That and the PSU has a 10 year warranty so either way I feel good about it all.

 

Help!
so recently got my AGA, and fitted a EVGA RTX 2070s watercooled GPU, plugged it all up, and haven't looked back, works perfectly on my 34" LG,

now how the hell do i change back to using the internal graphics, i thought if i just unplugged the aga, the laptop would boot using the internal gpu, but this doesn't happen, after boot i get the flashy line thing like its switching to the AGA but then it gets to the windows screen and locks/crashes every time, ive connected the aga back up and it all boots ok now, as im tying on it in that state, so seems im locked to using the aga,


also im a bit confused, as i only have one DP port on my monitor, which the AGA is plugged into, do i have to unplug it and plug the laptop direct into the dp port to use the internal graphics card or is there some magic where the internal card links thru the aga to the monitor bypassing the EVGA card in the AGA

 

Sounds like something went wrong when installing the drivers. I recommend plugging the AGA in and then reinstalling the notebook GPU drivers.
And then unplugging the AGA and using DDU to uninstall all the Nvidia bs (yes, even though you would have just installed the notebook drivers, there was some problem causing it to not work).
Then with the AGA plugged in, I usually just install the Desktop GPU driver and everything works good, even the notebook GPU and it performs 100% for gaming and even for undervolting + overclocking.

And yes, there is some magic that allows the AGA to pass the GPU signal through to the laptop and then back out of the laptop HDMI/DP to your monitor. I thought that was very cool and it confused me at first one day. I was like, hold up... how tf is it working with no HDMI cable...

 

Good DIY of the case! Personally I cut at the base of the power supply all the cables that are not used for the AGA.
Suddenly there is space in the housing so that the air enters well from the front then is expelled by the power supply at the rear of the housing.
So the case is closed and the air circulates well.
So much so that nothing comes out of the side openings of the case. The air enters in front of the AGA and escapes at the back thanks to the supply fan.
I specify that I measure the passage of air thanks to steam!
And yes I am a LoL vaper! It helps to see the air passages

 

I just sent a big cloud of steam to the sides of the AGM. As a result, air is drawn into the amplifier.

I deduce that the BeQuiet Power Supply / Front Fan combo of the same brand allow cutting all unnecessary cable to ventilate the AGA well.

Conclusion: Fresh air comes in strongly from the front but also from the sides of the amplifier and hot air is thrown dirty at the back of the amplifier by the power supply. Pretty cool!

If it can help some people it's nice. And what silence! I only hear the PC fan from time to time. So I know which games take advantage of the CPU

Good evening on our ALIENWARE!

 

Thanks, though I still kinda wanna make a change so that the lid closes. Maybe there exists PCIE 6pin and 8pin 90 degree angle plugs. And yeah ideally I would want the front fan pushing air out of the case since my 2080 isn't a FE... so it kinda just throws hot air allover. But I plan on it being in a tight space, so I wouldn't want the case to have a negative air pressure (sucking in the hot air that it throws out), this way it having a positive air pressure it brings cool air in from the front.

 

Sorry really but I don't understand. I have an RTX 2070S Fe but it should work like yours, right? He is not a Blower. There are 2 fans on mine which expels hot air from the GPU. Even so, fresh air enters the amplifier from the sides. however the card tries to expel the hot air on the sides but does not succeed. The hot air goes into the pressure supply fan. I think we have to find a solution so that your amplifier is properly closed. Thus the power of the front fan to bring in fresh air and the larger fan in the power supply will force hot air to exit behind the amplifier by pressure. For me it works. As a bonus, the side vents also suck in fresh air. It must be able to work for you. Well closed, the air has no choice

 

Hi , thanks for helping out, yeah I figured something was going on as even thou the screen freezes, Windows is still loading in the background , so has to be a driver issue,
when you say reinstall the driver for desktop gpu, can you explain more, as when I tried doing a “update driver” from the device menu, it states it’s already up to date ! Do I need to download drivers from somewhere?

im A bit confused when you say unplug or plug in the AGA! As either of these tasks require the laptop to be shut down ? Obviously you have to initiate the undock to start the unplug process ! And then shut down !

apologies for the above, I’m not questioning your wisdom, just trying to be clear what I need to do

p.s have been following your modding of the Aga, along with my own research as I wanted to know what I was letting myself in for, noticed your posts about clearance probs with the pcie cables/plugs, surprised you went with a full atx PSU, I’ve gone with the Corsair SFX 750, due to size of cables and itself being small, thus providing more room etc for cooling,

also I got the below with my evga gpu, wonder if they fit other gpu’s would be handy if it did,

https://eu.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=600-PL-2816-LR

 

You're right, I was confusing the 2000 series FE with the FE from every year before it that had blower versions, I forgot Nvidia Finally upgraded from the blower coolers. I think cuz this Noctua fan is running a lot faster than I like, it is loud and moving a lot more air, thus pushing it out of the side clear windows instead of sucking air in (due to making a lot of positive air pressure). Though you reminded me I need to double check that the PSU fan is enabled... I thought maybe I pressed the button yesterday when mounting it and then forgot about it

No need to apologize, we'er all here for helping and learning.

To avoid confusion I will just list the steps I will have taken to ensure it all works good.
1. Go to this website - https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx - and download the Nvidia drivers for the desktop GPU in the AGA and both your notebook GPU drivers.
2. Download DDU from either this website or whatever website you'd like - https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html
3. With your AGA still plugged in (I assume it is anyway since your notebook GPU isn't working), install the Notebook Nvidia drivers. They should be pretty much named the same exact thing, except the 'notebook'd rivers will have 'notebook' in the file name.
4. After the driver installs, shutdown the laptop and unplug the AGA. Personally I would unplug it by the power cord in the back, since the AGA cable plug can be a pain.
5. Start up the laptop, without the AGA being on, and see if it works. It should at least show the desktop, though likely with some performance problems due to some driver conflicting going on in your OS. If you see Windows fine, proceed to #6
6. It is highly recommended to boot into safe mode to remove the drivers with DDU. Searching on YouTube on your phone "how to boot into safe mode Windows 10" on YouTube or Google is the quickest and easiest way to figure it out, its not easily explainable through text but it is not hard to do.
7a. When you boot into safe mode, run DDU. If it asks for admin privileges, I would recommend doing so just in case. Personally I right click and run-as admin for it every time. On the right side where it says 'select device type' choose 'GPU' and it should auto select nvidia under it. There is also a button under that 'set windows device installation settings to' personally, I don't ever like Windows installing updates. I'm a big fan of "if its not broke, don't fix it". So I choose to have it never automatically install drivers. It is recommended to enable it for installing the GPU drivers though and you can feel free to start DDU again when you're finished and just press that one button to put it back to default.
7b. Make sure to click "Clean and Restart" button in the top left of DDU. It is the Highly Recommended option and it says so on the button.
8. When your laptop finishes rebooting, you should see a image on the screen no problem, but it will likely not be whatever resolution your laptop or monitor uses until you install the GPU drivers.
9. Plug in the Alienware Graphics Amplifier and install the 'desktop' Nvidia driver you downloaded from step #1. The Alienware Control Panel might have a pop-up saying "You need to restart the laptop to enable the AGA" I would do it anyway even though it won't fully work until the drivers are installed.
10. when it is finished installing that Nvidia driver, give the laptop a reboot again and both your notebook GPU and eGPU should be working fine, as well as they both should show their names under the Nvidia Control Panel if you have the AGA plugged in.

Normally, you only have to do half these steps, but your notebook GPU wasn't working. And once it is all working fine, simply updating the GPU drivers through GeForce Experience has worked fine for me. But soon I will stop using GeForce experience in general, since Shadow Recording seems to be iffy on whether or not it wants to work on laptops and Nvidia has no plans of fixing it (for over 5 years people have been reporting problems with it).

 

thanks for your help
Because I will be doing a fresh install of windows 10 pro, I have made a copy of your step by step,

but wanted to fix this problem before i did the install, so i had an understanding of whats going on incase it happens later,

I always like a try as you go attitude with problem solving, so rather than go thru all your steps, i started with downloading all the GPU drivers, and DDU. I installed the Notebook GPU driver whilst in AGA mode, then i decided to see if that alone fixed my problem, so shutdown, disconnected AGA, and rebooted, and vola! it worked,

so then shutdown adn connected the AGA, and it booted back into AGA mode,(i did this several times just to check all good), what was interesting, and didn't release this at the time, is now in Geforce Experience, it lists both GPU's, where as before it only listed the AGA connect GPU,

Phew, thanks for you help

one question thou,

in step 7a. you mention about setting 'set windows device installation settings to' 'never automatically install drivers'

is this just to stop windows trying to install GPU drivers whilst your doing a clean install with DDU, or to permanently stop windows installing drivers ??

 

No problem. Well, if you have Windows automatically installing drivers it will automatically reinstall things like the Killer Control Center (for WiFi and BT, but you don't need it and its been proven to hold performance back for network speeds. It seems like it finds a way to reinstall itself regardless though even if it doesn't fully reinstall itself, I still find a few processes for it. ( I followed this guide, but still some Killer software found itself back on my laptop http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...xtension-un-installation-and-blocking.830549/ ). It's just annoying to me, to uninstall a driver and immediately after doing so Windows starts downloading and installing it without permission. If you know how to Google to find the driver and install the latest version, you don't even need it anyway. Windows will very likely download and install a old driver anyway since it takes a while for them to decide if a driver is 100% compatible I guess?

 

will check out that thread re the killer stuff, I’d be interesting to see if it’s on my system, I’ve dealt with killer stuff since the dawn of time within Alienware / dell gear, it’s just pants, so when I received my 15 R3 I ripped out the killer WiFi n Bluetooth gismo’s and installed an Intel AC 9260 instead, and not looked back,

however can’t do much about the Ethernet port, but thankfully don’t use it much

 

Honestly I have no complaints with the Killer hardware or software. But if someone reputable tells me it hinders performance and provides a guide to remove it in the best way, then I will just go ahead and do that. I've been using Killer WiFi+BT cards for over 5 years and they simply worked for me and my internet at the speeds I should be getting.

Btw didn't mean to ignore your SFX question. The reason I went with a full ATX was simply due to value. I figure, if a new AGA comes out in the next 10 years, it will likely also use a full sized ATX PSU. This PSU was 100$ and has a 20$ rebate, 650W Gold certified and 10y warranty, fully modular, 135mm fan for helping cool + quiet the AGA. It just had a lot of value. That SFX PSU is very nice, its just double the price for the same performance basically.

 

what you say makes financial sense among other things,

to be fair, my reasons for buying the SFX where two fold, i knew the GPU watercooler would be a bit of a fudge in the standard AGA and wanted to create some space/airflow, and also, although i will prob leave the AGA engaged with the laptop for the most part, my end game is to build an Mini ITX case by the end of the year, so if i already have the GPU and PSU, the battles half won

 

That would be awesome, I seen a custom one made in acrylic on Google, though it looked kinda big. It would be even nicer if Dell made a AGA with more metal and screws though. There is practically no metal, aside from the back vent and the PSU. It uses melted plastic rivets all over the case. It likely attributed to the very low cost + effectiveness to the AGA vs competition, but sheet metal and screws cost pennies to such a huge company... then again they also use the worst of the worst thermal paste to save money so I guess there are better priorities.

I ordered a EVGA PowerLink, a CoolerMaster 90degree angle 24pin adapter and the Noctua LNA to quiet that obnoxious fan. Oh and when I went to try the AGA last night, I noticed when mounting the PSU, the AC outlet plastic shield was at the perfect height for my PSU fan eco mode, so basically as I screwed it in, it switched the fan off, so that is likely why there was so much air pushed out of the side vents. I'll just wait until tomorrow when I get my 3 packages to see how nicely it works together

 

yeah it’s a strange position to be in having an AGA,
In hindsight I wished I’d gone for the OLED 13” for its portability, and the Aga would of been a more long term possibility, as it is, my 15 R3 has become a pc that looks like a laptop, as it’s far to heavy to site on my lap lol

but it will do for now, and modern warfare on my 34” screen with all the bells n whistles will keep me smiling,

hope your packages provide you with what you need, pics would be nice,

once I get round to sorting my sfx psu out and water cooler fitted properly will also get some pics put up,

 

Definitely will post pics, I already have the EVGA power link plugged in but I am in no rush to test it out, I'll just wait until tomorrow. I showed all the bad things in the previous pics so when I am fully done I'll show all the good things.

I also had the 15R3 previously and after seeing many posts, wish I got either the 13 (for size/weight) or the 17 (better cooling). The 15R3 is a tank, definitely made out of good material. But carrying around that 9lb tank for almost 3 years started to get annoying. Maybe after 5 revisions of the m15, Dell will make a big leap in size/cooling/efficiency again.

That 2070 Super will work awesome for even 4K. I wish I waited and got a 2070S over the 2080 when they launched, they're nearly the same in performance. Some people have drilled holes in the top of their AGA to fit the watercooler pipes with the AGA. I'm not sure how long the tubes are but it looks like there is more than enough room for the tubes to be hidden inside, especially since you have a SFX PSU to help with the space. You could take a dremel to a lot of that plastic in the front and cut lines through it just like the grill on the front + probably use some bolts to mount it. I cut away and melted off pretty much all of that plastic except the front plastic grill, so there's no easy way I could fit a heavy AIO to the front of mine

 

it all currently fits, the AIO is sat in front of the psu between the side vent and GPU, its a snug fit, which is kind of ok as it keeps the water cables in place when closing the lid, but its tight,

thats why hopefully the SFX will give me a bit more wiggle room, and ive got some brackets for the AIO so it will be screwed in place, then can tie wrap the cables somewhere,

the AGA is def rife for having the hell beaten out of it, AKA modded! if i was keeping mine i would do, but dont want to harm the resale value, plus, even as it is, im only getting around 40-50c MAX playing games, so happy with that, but might change out the front fan for a nochua one to help

 

Just got my EVGA 2070 Super Hybrid for my AGA. When I first put it in and turned everything on, I could hear the AIO pump turn on, but the fans never turned on. Got my drivers installed and then my monitor went black. Figured it was a driver/BIOS issues, but every time I rebooted, it would lock up right around the time that I would log into windows, making it difficult to troubleshoot anything. Let it sit for an hour then put a blower fan on the radiator & card and finally was able to get into Precision X1 and see that the fans were being commanded to run, but they weren't spinning. Powered it off before it got too hot (it was hitting 80C and climbing, my guess is the pump wasn't running this time). Pulled the plastic shroud and found the fan/pump header loose on the board. Powered everything back up and it was idling like it should be around 28-30C, and maintaining 50C under stress testing. Glad it was something simple and I didn't have to send it back.

Edit-
For anyone curious, here's a comparison of my Firestrike 1.1 benchmarks with the internal GTX 1080, 2070 Super, and my old 2080 Non-Super:

https://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/15937900/fs/21720187/fs/17632650

 

Glad to see a fellow Hybrid owner, this card was not my 1st choice, but there are no FE cards about, and herd mixed reviews about blowers, found someone on reddit i think it was who had fitted a gtx1080 hybrid, so lead me to having one now,

glad you got over that issue, thought i had probs with my drivers issues,

great card at keeping cool thou,

ill do some bench marks later, see how it compares to yours

 

I was able to push the clocks a bit more (2160MHz peak on core, +1300 on Memory) and get it within 2% of my 2080 (mild overclock, was using stock air cooler) benchmark score:
https://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/21721610/fs/17632650#

My normal overclock profile though puts the 2070 Super within about 7-8% of the 2080 Non-Super though which is very impressive considering it's about a $300 price difference from when I bought my 2080 back at the end of 2019.

 

have to say im a bit out of touch with overclocking, and always been of the thought, if it works it works, but i guess if your getting close to 2080 clocks thats pretty impressive, do you just put up both clocks a little at a time until you get artifacts? or are there set profiles?

there is also this fan curve thing, ive watched a few youtube vids on it, but just not got the hang of it,

 

tried to make my setting as close to yours as possible, quite a difference in scores, wonder if CPU would make that much difference !

 

The CPU helps with the physics score, but doesn't do much for the graphics score. I'm betting on newer titles, especially DX12 titles, you're going to start hitting a bottleneck with your CPU. I'm seeing it with my GF's desktop which has a i5-6600K @ 4.5GHz and 2070 Super. On games like Battlefield 5, Wildlands, and Tomb Raider, her CPU stays consistently at 85-100%. With the new games, a 4core/4thread CPU will start to struggle. My 4C/8T laptop CPU seems to be a good match with the 2070 Super, especially with me having it overclocked to 4.5GHz.

As far as overclocking goes, my typical overclock is +100 on the core clock and +500 on the memory. This usually nets me a few FPS more in games and is still stable. When I'm pushing my clocks for benchmarking, I usually run my fans at 100%, and I start bringing up my clock speed in 15 or 30MHz increments until it isn't stable throughout the benchmark. Then I slowly start bringing up my memory clock until I start seeing artifacting. Once that happens, I'll usually back it off 50-100MHz. From there I just try a few different combinations of core/memory clocks to see what gets me the best score.

 

Yeah figured choosing an i5 might bite me in the ass at some point, however and the main point is i certainly dont seem to be struggling in games, and going from a just playable Modern Warfare on minimum settings, to all settings on ultra high and ray tracing on @ 3440 x 1440p makes me very happy, and dont think i need to upgrade my laptop, if i do start to struggle, then i will be looking at an SSF as stated in a previous post, but looking at a Ryzen CPU for sure,

thanks for the pointers re overclocking, will give them a go just to see how much extra FPS i can get,

cheers

 

Good luck and be sure to post the results! As far as a SFFPC goes, a Ryzen 3600/2070 Super is a damn near perfect budget setup. That’s what we’re planning to do with my GF’s in the spring.

 

So I been looking into a new fan, since even with the LNA (low noise adapter) the Noctua is way too loud without PWM controlling it. I've been looking into BeQuiet fans. I see on this page they mention a 3pin fan that has variable speeds. Is that a thing nowadays? I thought 4pins were required for changing fan speeds. Or does the BeQuiet fans just somehow detect when the speed should go up or down?

https://www.eteknix.com/be-quiet-shadow-wings-2-120mm-140mm-fan-review/2/

This is the review I saw and the info talking about 3pin and variable speeds. I haven't built a desktop in about 5 years so I guess my weakness is new fan tech. Also, kinda lame to see the fan is made in China, I always thought their stuff was German made.

Edit: FLX is just a fancy acronym for "I come with low-noise adapters" lol. If I can, I am gonna try to fit a 140mm BeQuiet silent fan. Also might consider painting this thing, it kinda looks gross from fingerprints/scratches/smudges. Also looks gross with the silver inside under the GPU and PCB

Edit 2: So I did some gaming today pretty much maxing the load for a couple hours like always (Afterburner shown it was mostly about 95-99% GPU load). Shadow of Mordor pretty much maxed out (no blur or DoF) -

No case mods with fan plugged in, lid on AGA - 77C max
No case mods with fan unplugged, lid off AGA - 70C max
Replaced PSU with EVGA Supernova 650 G5 - 60C max

Definitely way less obnoxious coil whine, but the coil whine isn't 100% gone. However it is possible to not even notice it when gaming, Whereas the coil whine with stock PSU was obnoxiously heard always

 

will this gpu work in the Amplifier ?

Gigabyte GeForce AORUS RTX 2080 Ti XTREME WATERFORCE 11G

 

No, not without doing some modding to the AGA. The AGA supports only 92mm fans without doing some cutting and drilling. That GPU has a 240mm radiator. You can plug the GPU in with the lid off and sit the radiator off to the side though and it will work perfectly. But you can't in any simple way, set it up with the lid closed.