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

I just got my 17" alienware and my Amp, I was going to buy the gtx 980 because the 980 ti is not listed on compatible cards. I see you had some trouble, witch one should i buy according to your issues??

 

I am on 6 monitors at work. I try to minimize them when I'm relaxing gaming after hours haha. Maybe I'll look into the 4k market. Recommendations?

 

Well, the alien power head is more than just telling you if the laptop is fully charged or if it is (dis)charging. It also indicates whenever the HDD/SSD is being accessed, and it, from what I seen, has always been this way since the old laptops (have an m15x right in front of me, and cannot get the alien head to black, and I think the same applied for the m14xR2 I had as well).

 

Then they should change their name to Annoylienware, or maybe Dellnial.

 

Hi guys and gals!

I am thinking about buying the GA for my new m17 R2, but have some small questions =)

1: How much performance do i loose with the 4x pci lanes compared with the 16x lanes of my stationary?

2: What GPU can you recommend? i was thinking about getting a 970 4gb (3.5gb ) aftermarket cooler card, should be enough for 1080p gaming.

3: Is there gona be a 16x version of the GA? (maby a alienware rep can answer this one)

4: Are moste of the buggs resolved when using the GA?

Best regards!

Marcus

 

1. At most 10%. On average 5%. The performance loss decreases as the resolution goes up.
2. Depends. What GPU do you have in the 17 R2?
3. Doubtful as there would need to be a slight design change on the laptops and GA.
4. If you mean the Nvidia problems at launch, then mostly. A couple issues with the GTX 980 ti and some older GPUs, but the rest should be solved/fine.

 

Well i can live with 5-10% ^^

I will get the 980m =)

 

If you have the 980m in the laptop, then I wouldn't get the GA now. Maybe later this year since the 980m is plenty good.

 

I will take your advice and wait, thans for the support

 

Check out the results above. This is using the gtx 980 ti pushing the signal to a 144hz monitor with g-sync enabled. The score is slightly better than the standard 1080p monitor I used before... interesting!

 

I guess the GA does have a tiny bit of lag because on my desktop, the average graphics score on Firestrike 1.1 is 17,200 using the 980 ti. That's using the Gigabyte version with the reference cooler.

 

I would be more inclined to chalk it up to bottlenecking in a laptop processor. The score details even say that's what's going on.

 

Hi all,

I have an Alienware 13 with similar specs that Game7a1 has ( i7-5500U | OEM 860m 2 GB | 8 GB 1600 MHz | 1440p Touchscreen | 1 x 256 GB M.2)

I paired it with my AGA with a HD7870 hooked up to it and got the following results (Fire Strike 1.1, Score of 4917):
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/7381198

I'm getting pretty poor performance in a game I frequently play - Natural Selection 2, which I thought would have improved after "upgrading" from an old DIY desktop sporting an i7-930 with 12GBs of RAM and the same HD7870 graphic card. My old system used to handle the game at a decent 60fps at 1080p and dips to 30-40fps in the heat of battles.
However, with my new setup Alienware 13 + AGA + HD7870, with the same 1080p monitor hooked up directly to the AGA, I'm only holding out 50fps and then dropping to 30fps in early-game battles - on LOWEST settings playing at 720p.

I'm using the latest drivers offered by both AMD for my HD7870 and nVidia for my internal discrete GPU, and these were from a fresh restore. Anyone has any ideas how to improve my performance, short of purchasing a new GPU? (Will that even help?)

 

From what I understand NS2 is highly CPU intensive so that ulv processor could be your bottleneck

 

If I already have the GTX980M in my 17R2, what card makes sense to put in my GA?

 

Here's the weird thing... NOT connecting the AGA allows me to play at a good 60fps on 1080p on the Alienware 13's 1440p touchscreen.

 

Hmm.... The HD 7870 is identical to the R9 270x, if I recall. And that's as powerful as the GTX 760. Wouldn't be surprised if the performance jump from the 860m is small.
In any case, for one, playing on the laptop screen is not a good idea as performance, for the most part (few exceptions), will drop. So you'll have to use an external monitor connected straight from the GPU, not the laptop.
The only things I can recommend doing are updating the GA software and Command center to the latest revisions and uninstalling the AMD driver with DDU and reinstalling the Omega driver made for the GA.

GTX 980 ti, GTX TITAN X, R9 Fury, and R9 Fury X. I don't think the GTX 980, while better, is worth getting for the GA with a 980m. Same for the R9 290x/390x, but to a greater degree.

 

Appreciate your advice. Would the Omega drivers you are referring to be the one linked here?

Would there be any significant performance improvements if I were to upgrade to a GTX 970, seeing that I'm limited to PCI Express 2.0x4 ?

Would anyone be able to give a guesstimate of the Fire Strike benchmark score given that I get 4917 with my HD7870?

 

That is the correct driver.
I see significant performance with an R9 285 (slightly factory overclocked) compared from the 860m. I'm sure the GTX 970 would be better. I'm going to test with the GTX 960 hopefully later today (if it comes today, that is) or tomorrow.
Looking at this R9 270x benchmark (in GA), 6000 could be feasible, but it's a stretch. It wouldn't be in that benchmark because of the i5-4210u.
In other news, an R9 295x2 is the high score for AW13 owners.

 

That's the thing, the video card in the GA is running on a PCIe 4x connection so it seems like a waste getting a GTX980ti for it. Would a 980ti on a PCIe 4x connection still outperform a 980m?

 

You really overestimate the performance drop of PCI-E x4. It's at worst, on average, 10%. On the average cases, 5 to 8%. The drop decreases when the resolution gets higher (it'll be closer to x16 when the resolution goes up).

 

lol seriously, people need to check the benchmarks.

 

That's reassuring. I looked up benchmarks on 3DMark and seems that users on an i7-5500U and GTX 970 combo are getting around 7,000+ score. GTX 980 brings the score up to around 7,700+. Thanks for the help!

 

yea don't worry it will be worth it

 

Hello,
anynone have a problem with the external AGA display reverts back to the notebook screen after launching 3d softwares\games? I have this problem and no answer so far.
My config is : AW13late 2014 i5 (win7 64) with an Asus Strix OC GTX970.


Asked here too :
https://www.alienwarearena.com/foru...creen-after-start-3d-things/last#post-1072808


NG

 

My 5500U + reference 970 (+150 core +200 mem) gets ~7750. Benchies are held back by the CPU, but gaming performance isn't hit too hard by the CPU, probably ~10%. Gpu tops at 76 degrees during heavy gaming (46% fan speed), i removed the GA fan since it was too noisy.

Edit - can the GA psu support the 295x2 and is there even sapace for the water cooler?

 

Yes and possibly. You just can't use the laptop display, that's all.

 

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/5224553/fs/5189969

Here we go - just made a base station desktop scenario - was the cost of admission worth it? Maybe, depending on resell value of the card down the line, it could well be justifiable for the 20% increase in performance.

Alienware 17R2 4710HQ 980M - 9151 Firestrike
Alienware 17R2 4710HQ 970 (1x) (amplifier running duplicate CPU OC) - 10869

18.8% score improvement without trying too hard so far on the GPU overclock. See the overclock settings attached.

 

Well I'm really happy with the graphics amplifier and my Alienware 15+ the new AMD R390x!

 

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/3dm11/9984608/3dm11/9995791
Comparison in 3dmark 11 980m vs 970 in the amplifier

 

Thanks for that comparison! Now I don't feel like I wasted money putting a GTX 970 in my amplifier (have a 980M in my 17 R2).

 

np. You'll get an 8% boost by going with a 980 OC - and no increase by adding a 980 without an OC into your amplifier. If you go for the 980ti you'll see enough of a difference to make the upgrade worth it for 4k gaming. . . otherwise, wait till the 10xx cards come out, perhaps in late Q4 2015. A full comparison based on the same processors running similar physics scores can be seen here:

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/5161537/fs/5040576/fs/5224553/fs/5189969

 

Any news on whether driver updates to the mainline AMD graphics drivers would be converted for the drivers for the AGA?

I'm stuck between choosing the GTX 970 or the R9 390 but I would rather go for the card with better driver support of AMD is going to take ages to update drivers for the AGA.

 

I think the R9 300 series should work fine, in theory. Granted, you'll have to use the R9 300 and Fury drivers instead of the Omega / Beta 15.6 driver.
Beta 15.5 worked on my GA without problems, so I'm sure the latest drivers should work fine too.

 

yep. I'M using the 15.15.1004-150619a-185674E And it Work perfect with The MSI 390x on my Graphics Amplifier and my Alienware 15. the witcher 3 run nice!

 

That's good to hear! I went down to the local PC shop and they were selling the 390 for 15% more than the GTX 970. Bought the Asus TURBO GTX 970 4GB in the end.

Updated to nvidia mobile 343.30 drivers before installing the AGA. First boot was a nightmare - screen was flickering every 5 seconds or so. A cold restart solved that. Ran 3DMark immediately:

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/5277814


Comparison with vs without the GTX 970:
http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/5277814/fs/5166742

Comparison between GTX 970 vs HD7870 XT
http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/5277814/fs/5166985

 

When you switch between GA and the laptop gpu and both are nvidia, then it will flicker a bit for a minute the first time you boot into windows. Thats because the drivers are basically re-installing for the new active gpu. I just wait a minute before I log in, and theres no more flickering then.

 

Looks like a massive improvement for your setup. It would seem the graphics amplifier is geared more toward the 13 inch users. Playing with a new bios for the card tonight. Will see how far I can push t opening up the power limits.


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messing around with heaven benchmark on ultra 1080p extreme; running an overclock on the 970 @ +230/500 which seems to be my stable point. Need to reflash the bios to unlock more potential TDP as my only holdback from pushing the clocks further is my power limit. Attached is heaven score, as well as the GPUz display showing max core / memory / temps /fans

 

My first-boot flickering lasted 10 minutes though, which is way too long for a driver installation. The nVidia Control Panel closed by itself everytime I opened it (I thought it could just be a resolution setting), which led me to do a cold reboot.

Wow, you're really pushing the card. Isn't 79 degree celsius way too hot in the long run? I was thinking of using the provided Asus GPU Tweak utility to do some slight overclocking but am a little worried that it might affect the built-in 860m when the GA is disconnected.

And yes, am very happy with the almost 2x improvement in performance from using the GTX 970!


Just one thing if anyone else is thinking of getting the newer generation of cards to insert into the GA. Place the card top face-down on a flat surface and see that the metal PCI bracket is flush with the top face of the card. Otherwise, you may not be able to close the GA. My old MSI Twin Frozr HD7950's fans could not spin because the grills of the GA were stuck on to the fan blades due to them sticking out of the top face of the card.

The MSI R9 390 has the entire metal frame sticking out of the PCI bracket which allowed me my final decision in sticking with the GTX 970.

 

Just got my GTX 980 TI for my AGA, but i cant get it working..

My computer connects with the AGA, i can see the graphics card and according to the graphics amplifier software, its all connected and running on the external GPU. I can, however, not get a picture out from the AGA to an external monitor. Nothing happens.

I have attempted any combination i could think of with installing and uninstalling, restarting with and without the AGA connected, i have tryed any output, and i have checked that all connectors are plugged in correctly.

Any advice would be much appreciated...

 

Ok, so.. If you cant get something working, just make a post about it asking for advice, and it will magically sort itself out...

I just did a final run of Guru driver remover, removed all nvidia stuff. Installed latest notebook driver, shut down and plugged in AGA. Booted up, installed driver again, rebooted - and its now working..

 

Hey, I've got an MSI 390x and I'm trying to get it running on my alienware 13 via AGA. I've downloaded the latest amd 300 drivers but i'm just getting a black screen when i boot the AGA up. has this happened to you? If you can give the link to the driver you're using that would be great

 

I never had to run with the mobile drivers . . . its interesting so many people have to in order to get their amp to work right. I use the desktop drivers for my 970, and all is well. Running at 1506 mhz core and 8000 mhz on the memory . . . latest heaven benchmark with it. CPU stayed at 3.57 ghz the entire run. In fact, it stays there 24/7 when plugged into the GA. Love it! (running my own custom bios for the 970, reflashed from stock to overpower to 125% and run at a constant 1.243 volts. (fans are at 99% on manual for the GPU once test
finished.

 

Valley Mark. Done benching finally, OC is 100% stable on CPU and GPU.
CPU clocking at 3.757 Ghz on a single core (4710HQ)
GPU clocking at 1503 mhz core clock and 8005 mhz memory bus. (GTX 970)

 

How does the Nvidia 970 have a better score than the 980? They are both external desktop cards in the GA? CPU turbo difference is enough to make the score that different?

@shrmn, 79 degrees C, GPU shouldn't care with that temp for years and years 24/7 unless perhaps if the voltage is cranked up a lot. Been running the 9800m GS GPU in my G50VT laptop for 4+ years at 90C, sometimes a bit hotter nearly 24/7 (via crunching for science) and hasn't burnt out yet so don't worry!

Dumb questions guys. So the Alienware 13", the connection to the GA is a 4x PCIexpress 3.0 and the 15/17" is 8x PCIexpress 3.0 (or all is 4x 3.0)? It'll be interesting to see when the bottleneck really starts to occur for both types. Reminds me of the differences between the last of the AGP variants of PCIexpress cards. At that point you'll know the best card you can run in the GA and any more would mostly a waste of money. Maybe ~4 years from now we'll reach it with top end desktop cards for the 15/17 and sooner for the 13"? http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/pci-express-scaling-game-performance-analysis-review,17.html , SLI desktop 980 cards there is about 20% FPS difference between 16x 1.0 (4x 3.0) vs 16x 3.0. So there would be some slowing for the alienware 13" when single cards ~double is Flops or dual GPU cards that is compatible with the in the GA.

2nd dumb question. If you plug the GA into the laptop without a GPU in it, are the CPU overclocking options in the BIOS effective or must a GPU be installed? Then it would prove it's pure marketing that CPU overclocking is disabled until the GA is plugged in (doesn't need the GPU so the laptop theoretically takes less power so overclocking is allowed even though a 240W ac adapter has enough capacity).
EDIT: Though maybe all the overclocking options in the BIOS can be done with Intel XTU software anyway, not sure.

 

970 is the desktop gpu and the 980M is the mobile onboard graphics card in my comparison. My 970 is overclocked to beat a stock 980 though.


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1. AW13 runs at PCI 2.0 x4 (blame the CPU). The 15 and 17 R2 have the eGPU bandwidth at PCI 3.0x4 (max number of lanes in the PCI cable) and PCI 3.0 x8 for the internal GPU.
2. GPU must be installed, and even then, you must enable the OC options in the BIOS. Honestly, the CPU overclocking can be done through Intel XTU or Throttlestop, so you aren't bound by the GA for CPU OC.

 

This is true. But my oc is much more stable and can be pushed greater when I use the GA. But even without the ga the 4710 oc is at 3.757 ghz


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