Would a future AGA capable of an RTX 30XX be of any use to 2020 laptops?

The AGA port on the most recent Alienware laptops seem to be capable of supporting (up to?) PCIe Gen 3 x4. The most recent leaks of the RTX 3090 mention PCIe Gen 4.

Based on what I’ve read so far, it seems that the connectors should match up (Gen 3 card in a Gen 4 slot and vice versa). However, a Gen 4 card in a Gen 3 slot won’t be fully utilized due to the bandwidth difference.

I created this thread because when I first came across the AGA, it sounded like a decent mid-term upgrade idea, but reading up about the differences in the new generation gave me pause. Given that I’m getting a laptop in the tail end of the RTX 20XX generation and the growing number of places Gen 4 is going to show up, I’m starting to have some second thoughts about this upgrade path and feel like (assuming there isn’t a catastrophic failure or theft), I should just save up for a computer with whatever comes after the RTX 30XX lineup.

Thoughts?

 

I have no way of knowing if a new AGA will be released or if the new Nvidia GPUs will or will not be useable in existing slots.


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No alienware laptop has pcie 4 since Intel has not yet released a processor with pcie 4 and for some reason does not want to support the new amazing AMD processors. As for the AGA itself pcie 4 is backwards compatible so the cards should work but none will physically fit in the AGA without the cover removed.

 

Accidental double post

 

I guess we will have to wait for benchmarks to see how much power is lost because of PCIe 3.

 

I would say no performance would be lost due to supporting PCIe 4. No GPU in existence today comes close to saturating the bandwidth provided by a PCIe 3 x16 slot, and I don't think there are any that saturate a PCIe 3 x8 slot either.

 

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.

 

The problem with TITAN RTX is that it's completely destroyed by 3090 at much lower price. TB3 to the rescue.

 

TITAN RTX It is better to 3070
3080 and 3090 is better to TitanRTX
Series 3000 is not compatible with AGA.

In the future I plan to buy a TITAN RTX, when I can find it for around $1000 bucks...

TB3 is awful for EGPU's.. Is not a option, is like a garbage...

 

Got it. Could be a long wait. TB3 eGPUs are as good as AGA in many cases,, and will get better with Tiger Lake'a and onwards new TB architecture. AGA is dead anyway.

 

There is a lot of performance difference TB3 vs AGA, the more powerful the GPU the more power it loses in TB3.

AGA with 2080 Ti and my 2017 Alienware is pretty much alive for me, and I think it will run great for at least 2 more years.

Already the first computers with TB4 are starting to come out, we would have to wait for the first TB4 EGPU although honestly seeing the results of TB3 I'm not very much on board.

 

Sure, you can use it for the next 5 years if it doesn't fail. The problem is that should one wish to use the latest graphics cards with the AGA, they no longer can.

It's not about TB4 eGPU, but about TB implementation within the new CPUs (onboard the SoC rather than external) and the improvement seems massive.

 

Interesting, I didn't know anything about this, the performance increases a lot, but I think it's still not enough, for a 3090 it's still losing a lot of performance.... In AGA the performance loss of a 2080 Ti vs mounted on a desktop PC, is around 5%....

For now I'm not going for any eGPU over TB, I'll wait for a new AGA, and if it doesn't come out I'll just eventually buy a TITAN RTX, and have it for the next 2 or 3 years.

And in 2 or 3 years I will change my PC for tomorrow's technology.

 

Pretty safe bet this new TB is just as fast as AGA, without the drawbacks - I am guessing that's why they are not refreshing AGA. There is no point, particularly if they are not using AMD CPUs (which don't have TB). The current TB3 is already basically matching AGA at 4K gaming and in many/most non-gaming applications.

 

In applications it probably does, but it definitely does not compete with AGA, the "control" game in 1440p with RT and DSLL, does not even give 60fps on a 3090!!!! In games without RT and DSSL it might compete with AGA, but when you turn on RT and DSLL, it's just as bad as ever. And since new games will slowly start to come out all with RT and DSLL, for me it's not an option TB...

 

The same goes for "assassin's creed odyssey" did not reach 60fps with a 3090!!!! It's easy to deduce what happens, it's an open world game, it consumes a lot of CPU resources, then that's where TB it's as bad as ever, in other FPS games it seems that if it performs similar to AGA, but in open world games or that have RT/DSLL simply the performance plummets.

 

Are you talking about the Jarrod's video? Did he use an external monitor, which is a must with eGPU gaming?

 

Yes is about the video, I don't use external monitor and my 2080 Ti gives me more FPS in AS: Odyseyy, than that 3090!!!!

I agree that using external monitor improves performance, but in Control and AS you don't even get 60fps with a 3090!!!!

TB is just garbage...

 

Look at the CPU he is using for benchmarling with the new TB. 4 core, CB20 score of 1700. What the hell is that? My 8750 does 3000. Surely any CPU-heavy game will be bottlenecked, nothing to do with TB. The whole point of this video is that even this gimped platform provides up to 50% graphics performance over the old TB implementation.

 

It's not because of the CPU, I use i7-7700HQ 4C/8T with 2080 Ti and I have much more FPS in AS: Odyseyy than that 3090!!! Everything in ultra at 1440p with no external monitor, and I practically always have more than 60FPS, same in "Control" with RT AND DSLLL enabled, with DSLLL I have much more FPS than 60.

This is not because of CPU is because although TB 2021 has similar performance to AGA in "normal" games, but in open world AAA games or RT/DSLLL there is no comparison, AGA still gives much more performance.

 

I'm still a bit skeptical - not of your numbers of his. In general not really a big fan of his videos - for example with SOTTR he doesn't state if this uses DLSS or not.