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

nVidia has released driver 368.39, which supports GTX 1070 now, and fixed the fan issue with GTX 1080 FE.

 

Type "run" and ENTER in search bar, type "winver" and ENTER.
Is your Win10 Version 10586 or later?
Can't install on 10240, confirmed.

 

to an external display, running at 2560 x 1440

 

The new 368.39 mobile and desktop driver can't run My 1080s in the AGA...
...still Desktop driver system verification failed.

I've Win 10 64bit version 10240.

Bios: 1.2.8
Laptop:
MODEL: Alienware 15 R2 (2015)
CPU: Intel Core i7 6700HQ
RAM: 16Gb
GPU: nVidia Geforce GTX 970M

 

so basically if I plug a 1080gtx into AGA it will decrease 10% of performance due to AGA's 4x PCI-E lane? and there's nothing we can do about it right? maybe only next gen of AGA or nextgen of intel chipet will run the VGA with max speed

 

I have a 15 R2, the 1080 only works for half of my games, but all the ones I currently want to play, Rise of the Tomb Raider, The Division, Need for Speed, all crash within a minute of start up. I can play GTA V though so I'm content for now. It's a bit buggy though, with a mix of medium-max settings (basically the lowest settings I'm willing to lower it to, with vsync on in 4k), I'm only able to lock it to 44 fps. I've seen reviews run fully maxed out settings in 4k at 55 fps. I can get between 50-70 fps with vsync off but can't tolerate tearing. Vsync on with 60hz gets me 32 fps, so I change the in-game settings to 48hz and use Riva tuner to cap it to 44 fps and now get a nice smooth experience. I know GTA V vsync is bugged but not sure how much the AGA/1080 issues exacerbate it.

 

Just read this on reddit: can someone try this out and let us know if this fixes your issues for now?



Just a psa for people with a 1080 and an AGA. This process works perfectly.

Stolen from a forum

"With the AGA not attached, have the mobile 368.22 drivers installed.

Turn off the laptop and plug in the AGA

(have the brown power cable plugged into the GTX 1080. Does it matter which of the power cables is plugged in? Who knows but that fixed it for me).

Download and install the new 368,25 desktop driver for the 1080, but don't perform a clean install, then reboot."

For some reason my notebook would just reboot constantly with the AGA and 1080 in but a reseat of the card fixed that issue.

Enjoy every game on ultra with your VR headset. This worked for me so thank you random forum person!

 

so the AGA and gtx 1080 doesn't work ?

 

Can someone tell me if the latest driver eliminated The need for switching drivers?

 

My nVidia control panel and also GeForce Experience is not prompting a download of the new driver: 368.39. I have scanned for updates repeatedly but nothing.

Still stuck on: 368.25. AGA and 1080 working fine but honestly the performance is only very marginally better than with my internal 980M.

 

It should be WAY faster then 980M..like at least 40% .. overclocking and using an external display could also help..i Will Be getting mine this weekend

 

does anyone know when the ASUS strix gtx 1080 coming?

 

Soon but it will not fit in the GA

 

yeap it wont close haha

 

Hello there, Im a fellow alienware 15 r2 owner with graphic amplifier and gtx 1080,Mine is working too on latest nvidia desktop driver 368.39 and its very fast performer . However I noticed that gpu z is reading the pci express speed as 3.0 x 2 instead of pci express 3.0 x4 which is slower than alienware advertised for the link speed. if it is not a lot to ask ,Kindly check for me your alienware 15 connection speed with the graphic amplifier using gpuz and if you can get back to me i will be thankfull, best regards,

 

anyone gonna make a AGA video with Gtx 1080?

 

It's about 60% faster than the GTX980 that was running on my AGA, that'd make it at least 80% faster than the GTX980M (which I barely use, so I didn't make benchmarks between the GTX980M and the GTX1080 so far)

The GTX980M is pretty weak for 4K, though it holds it's ground at 1080p (which is my Alienware 17 native screen resolution), it would have been better if it had a GTX980 performance but I won't complain too much.

Envoyé de mon SM-G935F en utilisant Tapatalk

 

I was going to upgrade my gtx 970 to a 1080 today but looking at the posts seems we are a bit far off. Should I look for a cheap 980ti ? I mainly use the GA for my HTC vive

 

1080 is like 50% faster than a 980ti in "VR" due to a New Tech ..

 

Any of you overclocked your CPUs since using AGA takes lots of heat burden from Thé laptop? And did you achieve stable and worth making results? My aga Will arrive soon

 

but atm 1080 doesnt seem to work well right with the GA ? Which one fits ?


UPDATE: Never mind I just ordered the MSI FE 1080. Hope it will be a good upgrade to my EVGA 970 SC

 

why not wait for the MSI Custom GTX 1080

 

could not resist well still upgrading from an evga GTX 970SC so still good and I shall be using it mainly for VR

 

maybe also the AGA lid will not close anyway...

 

hope someone with an MSI 1080 can confirm the lid closes as that would really be a downside

 

the usual MSI black and red design doesnt fit i think

 

better to start looking for a mod than

 

question is the gtx 1080 Ti having a reference card design...

 

Greetings all.

I recently sold my AW17 R2 and AGA.

I built a desktop and re-used the EVGA 980Ti SC ACX card I had in the AGA.

Thought it might be interesting to post the Firestrike scores of the same card in the AGA vs a 'real' PCIE slot.

AGA 980Ti - 14158 (total), Graphics 18778
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/8364158

Mobo 980Ti - 15713 (total), Graphics 18922
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/8755754

The card was using the same clocks and fan profile in both tests.

Thanks for all the help over the years from this fourm! It was by far, the best resource when I was having problems with my AW17.

 

I ordered an AGA for my 15R2 back in April of this year. It turns out that the card I was planning to use in it was fried and so I decided to wait for the GTX 1080 release rather than order a 980TI. I have been following this thread and a few others while waiting for the card to arrive, fully expecting that I would have my work cut out for me in trying to get it working properly. The card finally showed up last night and setup was far easier than I had expected. I was pretty surprised with both the ease of setup and the actual performance. I had been pretty skeptical that the AGA would end up being a big compromise and a waste of money. I was pretty concerned that the compromise would be too big with an external graphics enclosure and a mobile processor and that I would end up building another desktop for proper 4k gaming at home and just relegate my 15R2 to gaming on the road. I think this is going to work out just fine for me though.

I cleaned out all of my old drivers and I installed the 368.39 mobile drivers. I shut down and hooked up the AGA and I was off to the races. I ran a few benchmarks and got scores in and around the following:

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/8747220 - This score was with the 1.2.3 bios that my 15R2 shipped with.and stock clocks and fan profile.

I decided to flash my bios up to 1.2.8 and my scores improved very marginally.

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/8747451 - This score was with the 1.2.8 bios, stock clocks, and stock fan profile.

I played around with the OC a tiny bit after work today and have settled on this:

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/8759413

All in all I am really happy with the cards performance. No doubt I would get a bit more performance without the PCI bottleneck, and a proper desktop processor. I can just unplug the AGA and still play everything I want back at 1080p on the go though, and the same system is giving me decent 4k performance finally. Haven't had any trouble at all with any of the games I have run so far (Dragon Age Inquisition, Dragons Dogma, Dark Souls III, Witcher III, Metal Gear Solid V).

 

I can't seem to find any bios with that number sequence (1.2.xx), on the drivers page the last one available for me is A06. Am I missing something?

Sent from my MT2L03 using Tapatalk

 

If you're have one of the first revision laptops (15 R1 / 17 R2), then you have the latest BIOS for your laptop.

 

That's odd, it's shown as 15 r2 on Dell's website

Sent from my MT2L03 using Tapatalk

 

Are you sure? Did you input your service tag into Dell's website? Because there's no A06 for the 15 R2.

 

I am preparing for the arrival of the MSI GTX1080 probably arriving Tuesday. I have latest bios 1.2.14 and latest NVidia drivers ? anything else ?

 

So I bought the GTX 1070 FE and I received it yesterday and have had 0 luck trying to get it to work with the Graphics Amplifier. To make matters worse, information is impossible to find online and what little information there is is all about the 1080. Please someone help. This is the screen that shows up when I boot with the 1070 in the AGA https://imgur.com/a/nUIsp

 

I think the AGA doesn't support the 1070 for now. A update of the dock's firmware should fix it. For now, you just have to be patient

 

Just got my aga and GTX 1080..flawless setup with latest nvidia driver..17 R2. .

I contacted alienware support about DSR..they still think DSR is available to Aga users and told me that they Will lookin to it

 

Tell them that fast sync and adaptive vsync are also disabled/unavailable with the gtx1080 on the AGA, this is especially ridiculous when only running using an external display.

 

Why dont you Tweet them too? More of us, Thé better they hear

 

I don't have an AGA yet but I'm thinking about buying one with a 1080. Why won't the ASUS Strix 1080 OC fit the AGA? I thought all the 1080s are about the same size?

 

Any word on when the GTX 1070 will be supported @Game7a1 ? My 1070 will be here on weds.

 

I wrote on their forums:

http://en.community.dell.com/owners-club/alienware/f/3746/t/19982739

 

Nice, hope they introduce a hot fix soon

 

Can any AGA owner measure what the ABSOLUTE size limit for a video card is? AW tells it's 10.5". Is this correkt? Or is it a few more or less?

 

From what I read, it's not officially supported despite the ID being in the latest driver. Someone got the "Unrecognizable device" screen with the GTX 1070, so we have to wait for Alienware to fix that.

 

@AlienwareTech fast sync and adaptive vsync are also disabled using GTX 1080 with AGA..You really need to look into this with DSR support..

@nacaryus Thank you for the feedback! We are currently working on it!

hope there will be some good news

 

Hi, I will buy an AGA and a GTX 980 TI, and I want to know how is it working on the AGA?
Is there still a problem with this video card or everything it's fixed now?

 

i suggest you buy a gtx 1080 unless you find a really good price deal with the 980ti ..both of them works as intended

 

Would there be any reason to buy one of these to add a future 1080 GPU if I already have a 970m in my AW 15 R2? I assume this would only make a big difference if I want to get a nice 29" 4K gaming monitor and wish to play at it's native resolution. What it would take to buy such an upgrade could be more than it cost to buy the laptop so I'm not sure it's worth it.