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    AGA Size and 3080 compatibility

    Discussion in 'Alienware' started by Venat, Sep 2, 2020.

  1. Venat

    Venat Notebook Guru

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    Hey folks naturally with the announcement of the new GPUs yesterday I was curious to see if I can still get a couple of years out of my setup (Alienware 13 + AGA).

    Size wise the specs on the AGA are:
    Maximum length = 10.5"
    Maximum height = 4.37"
    Maximum width = dual slot

    Although I find that's smaller than reality. I currently have an EVGA 1080 card in there which is already 10.5" but you can see I still have some room before I even level out with the PSU height wise and about 1.5" before the hinge length wise so the fit should work unless I missed something critical.

    EVGA 1080: 10.5x4.5 dual slot
    Founders 3080: 11.2x4.4 dual slot

    However, my bigger concern is the 4x BUS limitation with my laptop and the AGA. The way I understand this is, as long as you're not relying on CPU too much in game the 4x limitation isn't too bad, however the 3080s also have the ability to save information to SSD for faster reload and that might require some more BUS bandwidth. Perhaps a 3070 or 2080 TI will give me as much of an upgrade as the 3080 with this limitaiton? Thoughts?
     

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    Last edited: Sep 2, 2020
    Venat, Sep 2, 2020
    #1
  2. pathfindercod

    pathfindercod Notebook Virtuoso

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    Could be why AW was recently polling people about what they would like to see in the next aga. ill bet they are about to announce a new one.
     
    pathfindercod, Sep 2, 2020
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  3. ijozic

    ijozic Notebook Deity

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    Where was this poll? I hope someone suggested an extra PCI-E slot in it for a sound card or such additions.
     
    ijozic, Sep 3, 2020
    #3
  4. cn555ic

    cn555ic Notebook Deity

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    If I have to remove the cover to fit a 3080 I have no issues. I also have no issues modify the crap out of the AGA in order to fit the new 3080 into it. 3090 I know for certain I won’t be getting.

    I measured my old car and I think height clearance should not be an issue. The length however will hit one of the cover hinges which that can be removed and utilize only one for the cover.
     
    cn555ic, Sep 4, 2020
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  5. Venat

    Venat Notebook Guru

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    Just to close this off, it looks like currently folks with a 3080 are unable to get it detected with the Alienware Amp. At this time not sure that a firmware fix will come out.
     
    Venat, Oct 28, 2020
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  6. etern4l

    etern4l Notebook Virtuoso

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    They are unlikely to bother with any fixes if all the 3080 cards on the market are too large to fit it.

    Given the radio silence from AW, along with the elimination of Umar's Community manager role, the future looks uncertain at best. Hopefully it's just terrible management/(non-) communication.
     
    etern4l, Oct 28, 2020
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  7. Juan Phoenix

    Juan Phoenix Notebook Guru

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    My experience with AGA on 3070

    My Alienware is a 13 R3 OLED 1440p
    32gb ddr4 2667mhz
    2Tb SSD
    Intel i7 7700HQ
    Nvidia 1060 mobile

    My first card connected to AGA was a 2080 SUPER Gigabyte OC Edition, I never had any problem.

    Then I bought a Gigabyte 3070 OC Edition, but I could not get it to work in any way, I tried everything, even the multiple methods of plugging and unplugging, both power cable and data cable, nothing worked, the system recognizes it perfectly and the drivers are installed, but it just does not work ...

    I sold it and bought a 2080 Ti Asus ROG Strix and it works perfectly.

    If DELL fails to make the 3000 series work normally on the AGA, possibly in the future I will go for the TITAN RTX which the next gen games, gives 8-10% more FPS compared to the 3070.

    I read right here that the TITAN RTX is fully AGA compatible, and technically the most powerful GPU that can run normally on AGA without any tricks.
     
    Juan Phoenix, Feb 16, 2021
    #7