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General discussionQuestion about new (to me) Alienware desktop + Amplifier(11 posts)(11 posts)
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Posted June 06, 2019
A friend at work gave me his old PC. Alienware X51 R3 i7 3.4ghz, 8gb ram. Quite a step up considering my old rig was an 8 year old Gateway...
But I digress. It has two video cards, not SLI. In fact, one GTX 980 Ti 2gb is in an amplifier and the other, GTX 970 4gb is in the desktop itself. Since I don't use 4k/occulus (which he did), is there any reason to have or use the amplifier with the GTX 980? The guy wasn't much help. He said he's a console player and I think he only got the amplifier to get the card so he could set up VR games. Since I'm not doing that, there's no added value for me. For a game to even see both cards. I have to have a DVI connector and HDMI in my monitor; one to the desktop and one to the amplifier.
Posted June 06, 2019
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Astaldo711: A friend at work gave me his old PC. Alienware X51 R3 i7 3.4ghz, 8gb ram. Quite a step up considering my old rig was an 8 year old Gateway...
But I digress. It has two video cards, not SLI. In fact, one GTX 980 Ti 2gb is in an amplifier and the other, GTX 970 4gb is in the desktop itself. Since I don't use 4k/occulus (which he did), is there any reason to have or use the amplifier with the GTX 980? The guy wasn't much help. He said he's a console player and I think he only got the amplifier to get the card so he could set up VR games. Since I'm not doing that, there's no added value for me. For a game to even see both cards. I have to have a DVI connector and HDMI in my monitor; one to the desktop and one to the amplifier.
By itself... no. You couldn't SLI with the internal 970... however... using the outputs on the amplifier you could bypass the internal GFX and run a newer nVidia or AMD GPU

Is the amplifier a Razer Core / the Alienware Amplifier / 3rd party?
Post edited June 06, 2019 by Bigs
Posted June 06, 2019
It's an Alienware Amplifier. I was thinking of just removing it and using the 970 in the desktop. I think the GTX970 4gb card is fairly good, at least better than the 980Ti with 2gb. Besides, all it really does now is take up room, suck up power, more cables, all for a card I may or may not use.
Posted June 06, 2019
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Astaldo711: It's an Alienware Amplifier. I was thinking of just removing it and using the 970 in the desktop. I think the GTX970 4gb card is fairly good, at least better than the 980Ti with 2gb. Besides, all it really does now is take up room, suck up power, more cables, all for a card I may or may not use.
Ah... it's a desktop? Missed that.

No idea why your friend would bother with the amplifier with a desktop... there's no need. The amplifier is used with the laptops...
Posted June 06, 2019
That's the info I got when I googled it. What I'm guessing is, he had the desktop, wanted to play VR and/or 4k games and someone said "get a GTX980 Ti!" so he bought the amplifier and put one in.
I think I'll just disconnect it and use what's in the desktop. Thanks for your help!
Posted June 06, 2019
One sure must be deadly afraid of opening the desktop box if one buys an external graphics card for a desktop but then, my friend bought a whole new desktop just because of that and bad advice given in the shop.

A desktop version of a 980Ti should NOT come with a mere 2GB VRAM: https://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-980-ti/specifications

Pick one of the cards and install, if appliable, that one and sell the external stuff and give your friend a present for such a super nice gift. I also suggest you add another 8GB of RAM depending on what games you play as eight is too little for a lot of new games.
Post edited June 06, 2019 by Themken
Posted June 06, 2019
Are you sure the gtx980ti is only 2 Gb Vram?
Usually the 980ti comes with 6Gb Vram, not 2.
Posted June 06, 2019
There are no 2GB variants of the GTX 980 Ti.
(Unless your friend is the greatest cheapskate on earth and got suckered into buying a fake from a Chinese seller...)
Posted June 06, 2019
Completely off topic, but damn that's a nice gift. Wish I had coworkers that cool.
Posted June 06, 2019
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elgonzo: There are no 2GB variants of the GTX 980 Ti.
(Unless your friend is the greatest cheapskate on earth and got suckered into buying a fake from a Chinese seller...)
I actually sped a bit of time on TechPowerUp website searching for some OEM 980Ti 2Gb before posting. They do some weir sh*t sometimes.

It was nice to see, a crippled 980ti with only 2 gigs, probably 1/4 of the memory bandwith. A 950 performance for 4 times the power consumption :D
Posted June 06, 2019
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elgonzo: There are no 2GB variants of the GTX 980 Ti.
(Unless your friend is the greatest cheapskate on earth and got suckered into buying a fake from a Chinese seller...)
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Dark_art_: I actually sped a bit of time on TechPowerUp website searching for some OEM 980Ti 2Gb before posting. They do some weir sh*t sometimes.

It was nice to see, a crippled 980ti with only 2 gigs, probably 1/4 of the memory bandwith. A 950 performance for 4 times the power consumption :D
I can't say for sure, of course, but i don't think that Nvidia would have sabotaged one of its upper-class product brands in such a way. We are not talking about a middle-of-the-road or low-tier product, but about a product name/brand with considerable pulling power. I tend to assume that whoever would have made a 2GB graphics card that identifies as a 980 Ti did so without Nvidia's authorization. But then again, who knows... sometimes companies do things that just leave me scratching my head...
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General discussionQuestion about new (to me) Alienware desktop + Amplifier(11 posts)(11 posts)
(11 posts)