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

Make sure to also expose the fans on the side vents. As much as your allowing it to vent, it’s important not to suffocate it!

 

After completion take pics of your modifications. Helps give ideas to people who want to do the same.

 

Here is my data while playing Assassins Creed Origins on 2K ultra settings with resolution modifier set to 140%. At 140% it looks amazing with gaming at 61FPS average. It’s been a month long experiment and below is a data log to show how cool the RTX2080ti can be with aircooling and passive backplate heatsink. Again if you have the AGA cover removed completely then it would work just as good and we all know this! It’s for people who want it all with the cover closed as it was intended for!! There is also undervolt on GPU to .800 and the CPU is undervolted to -.135mv.
Before modification and just undervolting the CPU and GPU, the temps were around 65-69c range. Without any undervolting it went as high as 78c. Looking at the delta there is whopping 9-13c lowered temps. I take that over hearing slightly louder fan noise
(fans that have no high pitched frequency)

 

Appreciate all the help in this thread - especially to those that answered questions about GPU size and the AMP.

I ended up picking up this card: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J63W42X/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_cTboCbAAE036A

The card fits perfectly - no issues.

I had no issues opening the AMP after reading the how-to's here. Had I not done so, I can certainly appreciate those that had issues. For fun, I tried to swap out the included PSU for an EVGA G2 1000w I had laying around. It fit, surprisingly enough and would have worked except the port for the power cord was not 100% with the cutout. I could cut the surrounding plastic to make it work, but lets be honest - the included PSU is already more than enough and a top end PSU would be wasted here.

I'm pairing this with a m15 (8750h, 16gb, 1070mq, 512gb, 144hz, 90w, silver). I plugged my Logitech G710 keyboard into the AMP and two 27" monitors into the 2070.

I did have some initial problems:

1 - my keyboard worked, but monitors didn't. I had to uninstall the nvidia drivers and reinstall to get it to recognize the 2070. After a reboot, both monitors worked.
2 - Lag in just Windows (mouse stutter). I disabled the Intel GPU via Device Manager and this resolved (found the answer to this here, love this forum).
3 - Lag while gaming. I disabled the 1070mq on my m15 and this resolved (figured if the Intel worked, maybe this would too - roll of the dice solution lol).

I'm now getting almost identical performance to my 8700k and 1080 desktop. Pretty happy with these results. I've only tested about 30 minutes as troubleshooting the above took a bit. I'll report back if anything changes.

Thanks for all the helpful advice!

 

Alright well after agonizing over whether to just take a hole saw to it, decided that your way simply looks better and allows more flexibility for future mods so got to drillin' a whole bunch of holes.



Then after slapping the USB fans on top it's done (for now).



So end result is not earth shattering like yours but in Watchdog 2 maxed out 1440p my GPU went from 74-75 to 70-71 (with the case wide open it's like 66-67). I can definitely feel warm air being exhausted from the top so I think the overall effect is better than just what the GPU indicates. Like yourself I wanted to have a closed case and low noise so to that end I'm happy with the result.

 

Either go with hardware modifications, or ask to buy a blower graphics card here, RTX 2080 Ti 11GB. We should start recommending blower-type graphics card from now on.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAB948F22307

 

Yep if Nvidia had retained the blower design for RTX we wouldn't have this problem. That's a sweet Asus card but I got such a good deal on mine (under 1k) that I simply couldn't pass it up. I think it's gonna be mandatory for people with 2080 Ti (non-blower) in an AGA to do SOME type of mod as the heat inside the case is really kind of insane and I'm sure it will decrease the life of both the card and the PSU otherwise.

 

Undervolt the GPU with MSI afterburner and those temps will drop a lot more. Remember my drop in temps are not just attributed to the mods of the AGA, it’s undervolted too.

 

How's the CPU on the m15 doing (heat/throttling) while gaming with the AGA? Is the m15's cooling sufficient with the load only on the CPU now?

 

The mouse stutter often only appears after changing monitor setup settings. You shouldnt encounter while booting with only the external monitor enabled and connected. Its an optimus bug and it sucks that intel never fixed it.