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

Anyone succeeded using a network card (or other than a vga card) on the AGA?

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For my fellow ffxiv players I can run it at 4K with lowest settings(the game still looks gorgeous somehow) WITHOUT the aga with it I cannot wait.

 

hi, anyone finds a way to keep mobile gpu (960m for my case) on when external gpu plugged in?

 

The internal discrete GPU is disabled when using the GA as a external GPU dock, and there are no ways to re-enable it.

 

Thank you sir, for quick respond, you seem to be the right one to ask this other question: "can I plug another pci card to the GA? for example, a 10g network card?"

 

I wouldn't know. Sorry.
I mean, you could put a PCIe device in the GA, but I don't know how the laptop would respond.

 

Have an Alienware 15r2 with 970m. Since I got the oculus rift dk2 am thinking of upgrading to an Alienware amplifier and an evga gtx970. Will this setup work for vr ?

 

That GPU is the minimum requirement for the rift. No sure if it will work with the AGA though as not even DSR works with it because of Optimus.

 

so the AGA is a waste of money. Considering reselling the alienware and build a desktop

 

I don't think its a waste of money as my gaming experience has taken a big step up thanks to that but its very disappointing that you cant use the extra features you get with these very expensive high end cards.

 

what extra features are not supported ? Yesterday took the plunge and did actually order it. Need to do some research on what gpu is best to get. My budget is very limited at the moment and I need it only for VR as for gaming the 970m suffice.

 

You took the plunge and ordered the consumer version of the rift? Unless you get the graphics amp also, there's no guarantee it'll work smoothly with a mobile video card. Even the 980m is probably barely cutting it in terms of raw power.

Edit: keep in mind ideally you're aiming for 90fps not 60 on the rift. Or that's what I've read at least.

 

No... I took the plunge and ordered the graphic amplifier

 

Just FYI, i pluged a pcie network card on to the AGA, the GA runs but no device detected, though the usb hub works fine.

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Hello all
Short of reading ever page in this thread. Is there a quick guide on what performance people are getting from the various Graphic Cards in their Ga

I recently bought the AW 13 r2
And have noticed the GA are getting a little cheaper
But without spending a silly amount on a graphics card. What can I look at buying that I'll still give me a good jump in graphic performance.
I have the 1080p screen. So no need for 4k
I hear the processor is a limiting factor on these laptops?
As everytime I go on a website to see if the laptop will run x game. It usually says it doesn't meet the minimum requirements?

 

I have the AW13 r1, I7, 1080P screen.
To give you some idea for 1080P gaming, in order to run most games at ultra settings the minimum you should put in the GA is a 2GB Nvidia GTX 960. It's about $200.
A lot of people use the GTX 970, but all you'll get from that is a better frame rate unless you go > 1080p. I've never had the $ for hardware to go 60fps or > 1080p. The GTX 970 is over $300. I think that gets into the 'silly' amount of $.

So on Shadow of Mordor using the laptop's 960M, I get about 29fps at 1080P, high graphics. With the AGA and GTX 960, I get about 45 fps at 1080P with Ultra settings, so about 50% increase overall.

The AGA w/ gtx 960 moves me from below min. requirements for most new games with just the laptop to above the min.
IMO, the GTX 960 2GB (or 4GB) is the perfect value for a card in the AGA using the AW13.

The min. requirements listed for most games over estimate the CPU needed. The GPU is way more important. Don't be scared by quad cores being spec.ed for games as you will never see a noticeable limit by the CPU unless you start benchmarking, and looking for a small difference.

 

Could anyone possibly help me with this? How would the Alienware 15r2 handle RED 6k R3D footage with the GA and a Titan x? I know the PCIE is 4x so wondered what effect that would have on video editing and graphics work

 

Unless you have a test file for titan x owners to try, we can only give you speculation.

 

I can try and get that on Monday. Until then what is your speculation? Or even how RED 6k footage would do on the 980m with 8gb of vram. I am trying to decide between the 15r2 or the Dell Precision 5510 or 7510 series

 

To be honest I don't know as I have never worked with 6k footage however, wouldn't something like a quadro be more appropriate for professional tasks?

 

I would think a desktop titan x would be better than any mobile Quattro card but I honestly don't know enough about the Quattro line. I know they are pro but it seems desktop graphics are king

 

There are Quadro desktop GPUs. If you need a GPU for professional work, a Quadro GPU would be best. However, no one's tested a Quadro or FirePro (AMD's workstation GPUs) GPU in the Graphics Amp, so the steps to install it are unknown. It should be possible, in theory, but that theory needs to be put to the test first.
Alternatively, if you need double-precision workloads, you could buy a used GTX TITAN or TITAN Black as they are in-between the consumer and professional GPUs (the GTX TITAN X is a full-on consumer GPU, but has better single-precision performance).

 

It used to be that Quattro , kind of like FireGL cards, were just identical cards to Gaming cards, with different optimized firmware and drivers. Not sure if that's still true or not.

 

What is it that you're expecting the AGA and the Titan to do? I don't know what the file size is of the 6k RED, but do you think it's larger than 4k 16 bit TGAs? Because I've had zero issue doing very deep-layered comps with that file and MUCH less capable machines. You do know that virtually any edit/vfx package is going to allow you to use proxies, right?

I wouldn't even get the AGA. Rather, get the 8gb 980, upgrade to 32gb RAM, and do as altec did and swap a 950 into your #1 ssd slot, and put your boot drive on #2. If you have money left over upgrade to a SATA ssd for the HDD slot. These things will make much more difference.

In the distant future maybe get a Tesla card and a TB3 box, for renders. But IMO you're way overthinking it at this point. If render speed were an issue then a full-sized workstation would be far more appropriate.

 

Yea I think before you just install the other driver and boom, pro card. But they stopped letting you do that a few generations back. I think they now laser cut or something on the hardware level to force you to buy the correct card.

 

I see a good deal on a used alienware graphics amplifier but it comes without the proprietary cable and I cannot find replacements anywhere.
Can someone kindly point me to where I might find one?
I really don't want to miss this deal

 

You're looking at the ebay deal I assume? I messaged one of the sellers and they said you could buy the cables from dell for about $80 (I didn't confirm exactly how much it was from dell, so it could be higher or lower)

 

Is there anyway to load a Quattro card?

 

Also how does the graphics amplifier stack up against a future Thunderbolt 3 external graphics solution?

 

I don't know if anyone has done a head to head, but there is a thread over on Tom's Hardware that has a 980Ti getting 15k on firestrike with the Razer. Slightly higher than the 13.9k I get with my AGA/980Ti.

I think the gap will grow because available bandwidth is higher with TB3 and it doesn't require company specific drivers.

 

Hard to say. Although keep in mind the graphics amp is designed for our laptops since it disables internal one when plugged in, which helps with heat. Unless we are able to combine the power some way using the core. But guess we will see.

Edit: got a link to thread?

 

What is the best BIOS Version to use with the AGA. I have noticed on the latest bios update and the one prior to that, the benchmark scores on 3d mark are significantly lower. Which is the best version?

 

Since you've tried two, you can also give the 1.2.3 bios a try. That one came with the laptop upon purchase.

 

Where is this thread?? I didn't know the Core was being benchmarked behind closed doors. I hope Dell figures out how to get it to run on their XPS line... Don't want the big-bezeled Razers. It'll be tricky since the Razer Stealth has no discrete GPU, so Dell would have to write a new BIOS from scratch.

 

This is the one i'm using and find the best? Why would they do this to newer versions?

 

I'm pretty sure Dell isn't going through extensive testing upon each bios release. Probably just hacking up the fixes and calling it a day?

Also I just got my graphics amp and is it supposed to be kind of hard to open it up? I have the release switch moved all the way to the open side and I have to really yank the top lid off and hear some plastic popping and such.

 

Yeah mine is the same when opening it. I tend to release the latch and pull the bottom on each side otherwise I feel as though ill tear out the GPU lol

 

What is significantly? Are we talking about 100 pts in firestrike or like 20 Fps in Games?

Btw where can i download older bios versions? I dont find that link at driverpage anymore

 

For which laptop and which BIOS version do you need? I can provide a link to the page that has the download link.

 

This is probably the important question. Everybody's definition of significant varies.

 

With 1.2.3 i get 17560 graphics score but with the newer bios version i get around 16200 graphics score, which is see as significant. Shouldn't get worse! If anything, should get better.

 

Getting my 980ti hybrid tomorrow, gonna experiment with 1.2.3 and 1.2.7.

 

Let us know how you get on

 

For 17r3. I wanna try if got the Same Performance difference. 1.2.3 and .7

 

1.2.7
1.2.2
Can't find 1.2.3. Must be a from factory-only BIOS.

 

1.2.3 was removed from driver site for some reason. I still have my downloaded copy but I don't know if anyone trusts it. But it was direct from Dell.

 

Ah, okay then.

 

https://www.mediafire.com/?7ht0a1o1d2l1gly
Here's the file I downloaded direct from Dell before it was removed. Only thing I modified about that file was the file name. Otherwise it's identical to what you would've gotten.

Edit: Just to clarify, that's the 1.2.3 bios for the AW17 R3. Dunno if usable on other models.

 

I just purchased the GA from ebay, I have the 295x2 in it, and i have the AW 17 r3 with the 1.2.8 Bios i keep getting restarts when i connect the GA. Is it not supported?

 

Have you tried using it again on a different bios? Unless your video card or graphics amp is defective, it should all just work without a hitch.