Opinions on my PC?

[dls1989]

Hello, last summer I bought an Alienware Aurora R8 for 2800usd. Just looking for opinions on it. And yeah I think I probably over payed.

Alienware Aurora R8

Alienware 850 Watt Power Supply with High Performance Liquid Cooling

Intel Core i7 9700K (8-Core/8-Thread, 12MB Cache, Overclocked up to 4.6GHz across all cores)

16GB DDR4 XMP at 2933MHz Dual Channel HyperX

256GB M.2 PCie NVME SSD (Boot) + 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s (Storage)

Dual NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 OC graphics 8GB GDDR6 each (NVIDIA NVLink SLI Enabled)

DW1810, 802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.2 [G6 JAW]

Wireless Driver for 1810/1820

Windows 10 Home 64bit English

PS, copied the info from the detail page that came with the PC. I don't understand much of it.

 

[Oussebon]

What aspect are you looking for opinion on?

The spec seems coherent as far as it goes. A few things though:

1) The storage is relatively meagre for a gaming PC, in that you'll typically want to have games on SSD storage and the SSD is quite small. If the system has room you could add an additional SSD.

2) Probably the most noteworthy feature is that it uses dual graphics cards. This is quite unusual (relatively unpopular) in modern systems because 2 graphics cards can often give no more performance in gaming than 1 card.

In games that use DX11, multiple graphics cards function via SLI (Nvidia) or Crossfire (AMD). For SLI, you need a specific 'profile' to be provided for the card, usually by Nvidia or sometimes you can fiddle one to work. The catch is that Nvidia often doesn't provide a profile and nobody can get SLI to work with that game. So instead of 100% more performance you get 0% more performance. Occasionally performance scaling is negative, i.e. the presence of the 2nd card causes a performance loss. Even when there is positive performance scaling, the gains may not be 100%. SLI can also sometimes involve other issues like microstutter, and for a long time there was a buy where Gsync tanked performance on SLI-enabled systems.

Some technologies widely used in modern games like TAA essentially prohibits SLI too.

Nvidia have been steadily reducing SLI feature support - which in itself didn't necessarily mean the technology was going obsolete as cutting 3 or 4 GPU support for gaming was essentially trimming a niche feature of a niche feature. But the perception in the gaming community has certainly been that SLI is on the way out for a long time now. However, Nvidia have stripped SLI support from their 3000 series cards below the $1500 RTX 3090 (3080 does not have SLI). And then just the other day:

Nvidia: we won't create any SLI driver profiles after Jan 2021

However, some games and apps will still be developed for multi-GPU use within the code.

hexus.net

So SLI is all but dead going forward.

In newer APIs used in games - DX12 and Vulkan - multi GPU support needs to be supported by the game itself. As you can see in the article, Nvidia have said they will switch the focus to working with devs to implement that. However, don't hold your breath. Explicit mGPU in DX12 was extremely exciting as a tech back in ~2016, especially heterogenous mGPU which would have allowed for GPUs of different kinds and brands to be used together e.g. an RX 480 alongside a GTX 1080. However, afaik only Ashes of the Singularity ever implemented that. Some DX12 and Vulkan games do support homogenous mGPU (2 GPUs of the same kind, like you get in SLI) but even that's adoption has been far from widespread.

If it's not something you've paid much attention to, you can always use monitoring software to see which games use both cards.

[Guide] How to setup MSI Afterburner On Screen Display using RTSS

A fair few people have asked me how to setup MSI Afterburner On Screen Display (OSD). I checked this subforum and to my surprise there was no guide on how to do it. So I figured I'd make a guide for everybody out there struggling. 1. Downloading and Installing You will need to download a few thin...

linustechtips.com

If both cards are under a similar load, the game is using multiple GPUs to some degree. If one GPU is under heavy load and the under is under very little load, it probably doesn't use multiple GPUs.

3) What monitor are you gaming on? What is the exact model?

 

[dls1989]

What aspect are you looking for opinion on?

The spec seems coherent as far as it goes. A few things though:

1) The storage is relatively meagre for a gaming PC, in that you'll typically want to have games on SSD storage and the SSD is quite small. If the system has room you could add an additional SSD.

2) Probably the most noteworthy feature is that it uses dual graphics cards. This is quite unusual (relatively unpopular) in modern systems because 2 graphics cards can often give no more performance in gaming than 1 card.

In games that use DX11, multiple graphics cards function via SLI (Nvidia) or Crossfire (AMD). For SLI, you need a specific 'profile' to be provided for the card, usually by Nvidia or sometimes you can fiddle one to work. The catch is that Nvidia often doesn't provide a profile and nobody can get SLI to work with that game. So instead of 100% more performance you get 0% more performance. Occasionally performance scaling is negative, i.e. the presence of the 2nd card causes a performance loss. Even when there is positive performance scaling, the gains may not be 100%. SLI can also sometimes involve other issues like microstutter, and for a long time there was a buy where Gsync tanked performance on SLI-enabled systems.

Some technologies widely used in modern games like TAA essentially prohibits SLI too.

Nvidia have been steadily reducing SLI feature support - which in itself didn't necessarily mean the technology was going obsolete as cutting 3 or 4 GPU support for gaming was essentially trimming a niche feature of a niche feature. But the perception in the gaming community has certainly been that SLI is on the way out for a long time now. However, Nvidia have stripped SLI support from their 3000 series cards below the $1500 RTX 3090 (3080 does not have SLI). And then just the other day:

Nvidia: we won't create any SLI driver profiles after Jan 2021

However, some games and apps will still be developed for multi-GPU use within the code.

hexus.net

So SLI is all but dead going forward.

In newer APIs used in games - DX12 and Vulkan - multi GPU support needs to be supported by the game itself. As you can see in the article, Nvidia have said they will switch the focus to working with devs to implement that. However, don't hold your breath. Explicit mGPU in DX12 was extremely exciting as a tech back in ~2016, especially heterogenous mGPU which would have allowed for GPUs of different kinds and brands to be used together e.g. an RX 480 alongside a GTX 1080. However, afaik only Ashes of the Singularity ever implemented that. Some DX12 and Vulkan games do support homogenous mGPU (2 GPUs of the same kind, like you get in SLI) but even that's adoption has been far from widespread.

If it's not something you've paid much attention to, you can always use monitoring software to see which games use both cards.

[Guide] How to setup MSI Afterburner On Screen Display using RTSS

A fair few people have asked me how to setup MSI Afterburner On Screen Display (OSD). I checked this subforum and to my surprise there was no guide on how to do it. So I figured I'd make a guide for everybody out there struggling. 1. Downloading and Installing You will need to download a few thin...

linustechtips.com

If both cards are under a similar load, the game is using multiple GPUs to some degree. If one GPU is under heavy load and the under is under very little load, it probably doesn't use multiple GPUs.

3) What monitor are you gaming on? What is the exact model?

I don't have a monitor exactly, im using my 55inch 4k tcl tv.

I've been considering pulling one of the gpus to sell and maybe use that money to buy a Blu Ray drive.

I've seen comments on the GPU I use not being any good for 4k at 60 fps, but play fo4 with graphic enhanced mods on 4k at a solid 60fps.

Oddly when ordering this rig, that is the best cpu I could choose, and I've read it's not too good of one.

Also I was just curious on how badly I overpaid. Will it be a capable rig going into the games that are designed for next gen gaming.

Recommended upgrades?

 

[Oussebon]

Oddly when ordering this roof that is the best cpu I could choose, and I've read it's not too good of one.

The "best" CPU you could have got for gaming at the time you bought it would have been the i9 9900k (though I don't know whether Dell sold it with that model ofc, I guess not given what you say).

However, the 9700k isn't a bad CPU. You wouldn't buy it today given a choice, because there are newer options. But it's not bad, it's still very fast for gaming.

As an aside, Dell's statement of "Overclocked up to 4.6GHz across all cores)" is a bit cheeky. Because that's actually what the processor boosts to across all cores anyway without an overclock. They might be referring to the fact they have disabled the limits that would cause the boost clocks to drop after a little while, but quite a few motherboards just do that for you anyway (as in, without you asking them to).

I've seen comments on the GPU I use not being any good for 4k at 60 fps, but play fo4 with graphic enhanced mods on 4k at a solid 60fps.

As you say, it depends on the title. It's not ideal depending on what games you play and what settings, but as long as it meets your needs, that's good.

That said - Fallout 4 performance does scale with SLI.

This means selling your second card may well hurt performance in what I assume is one of your favourite titles. Unless you already disabled SLI and are only running on 1 GPU.

 

[Oussebon]

Also I was just curious on how badly I overpaid. Will it be a capable rig going into the games that are designed for next gen gaming.

Recommended upgrades?

You might not have overpaid by as much as you think. Depends on what pricing was like for other products at the time, and whether this was before/after the 2000-series Super GPUs launched. Alienware can be awfully expensive, but sometimes is competitively priced versus other prebuilds.

As for how it will play in next gen titles, that depends on the titles, and whether / how well they support multi GPU configs. Which we can't know until they're out and benchmarked.

I wouldn't recommend any upgrades yet, for 2 reasons. 1) new hardware is launching throughout the season so buying now when you don't have to buy means you're limiting your options. 2) Speculatively upgrading hardware without knowing what future games will actually need mean you've no idea if what you're buying is necessary / the right choice for your needs.

I recommend you stick with your current system.

If you want to sell a GPU for funds, go for it, but make sure you check whether a single GPU is enough for your current gaming by manually disabling SLI first.

 

[dls1989]

The "best" CPU you could have got for gaming at the time you bought it would have been the i9 9900k (though I don't know whether Dell sold it with that model ofc, I guess not given what you say).

However, the 9700k isn't a bad CPU. You wouldn't buy it today given a choice, because there are newer options. But it's not bad, it's still very fast for gaming.

As an aside, Dell's statement of "Overclocked up to 4.6GHz across all cores)" is a bit cheeky. Because that's actually what the processor boosts to across all cores anyway without an overclock. They might be referring to the fact they have disabled the limits that would cause the boost clocks to drop after a little while, but quite a few motherboards just do that for you anyway (as in, without you asking them to).

As you say, it depends on the title. It's not ideal depending on what games you play and what settings, but as long as it meets your needs, that's good.

That said - Fallout 4 performance does scale with SLI.

This means selling your second card may well hurt performance in what I assume is one of your favourite titles. Unless you already disabled SLI and are only running on 1 GPU.

I still have sli enabled but I regularly check and nothing is ever loaded on the 2nd card.

And it's not so much a fav game just a game with good potential 😁 appearance wise.

If most games won't support sli in the future, would selling one GPU be that bad?

As it is, I have no disc drive in this thing and gotta get an external drive for it.

 

[Oussebon]

I do like modded Fallout 4 Though I'm pretty certain a 2080 wouldn't run my FO4 or SSE modded installs at 4k 60hz. In that it doesn't at 1440p on my 2060, and the 2080 would give a lower framerate at 4k than a 2060 at 1440p. But that's by the by..

I still have sli enabled but I regularly check and nothing is ever loaded on the 2nd card.

Not even in FO4?

What are your main titles? / What games have you checked and seen no load on the 2nd RTX 2080?

What software did you use to check?

Are you sure it was reading the 2nd RTX 2080 and not the integrated graphics?

SLI needs to be enabled in the nvidia control panel, and it also needs to be set for the specific game. If the drivers detect there's an SLI profile for the game, it should do that automatically.

Is the SLI bridge physically installed?

These are older games but still:

GTX 1080 Ti SLI Performance in 25 Games

11.11.2017 Update: For the most up-to-date SLI benching results using Core i7-8700K at 4.6GHz, please see The GTX 1070 Ti SLI Performance Review vs. the ... Read more

babeltechreviews.com

And on Turing cards:

NVIDIA SLI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080 with NVLink Review

In our Turing NVLink review, we test RTX 2080 Ti SLI against RTX 2080 SLI in 23 games and also include Pascal's GTX 1080 Ti SLI numbers. Our results confirm that NVLink does give higher performance than previous generations' SLI, even though game support could be better.

www.techpowerup.com

That you never get any load on the 2nd GPU means something's not quite right somewhere, either in the readings on the configuration.

If most games won't support sli in the future, would selling one GPU be that bad?

I didn't say it would be bad at all, I said:

If you want to sell a GPU for funds, go for it,

Just make sue it's not going to tank your performance first.

If you don't need and/or don't use your 2nd GPU, no reason not to sell it. Just be absolutely sure you won't miss it. Otherwise you'll then paint yourself into a corner where you need to sell your other GPU and buy a 3080 or something

Also, we don't know for a fact most games won't support multiple GPUs. They won't support it via SLI, but they can support it in other ways. Although I would be surprised if we saw wider adoption of multiple GPUs, at the same time I don't know that we won't

 

[dls1989]

I do like modded Fallout 4 Though I'm pretty certain a 2080 wouldn't run my FO4 or SSE modded installs at 4k 60hz. In that it doesn't at 1440p on my 2060, and the 2080 would give a lower framerate at 4k than a 2060 at 1440p. But that's by the by..

Not even in FO4?

What are your main titles? / What games have you checked and seen no load on the 2nd RTX 2080?

What software did you use to check?

Are you sure it was reading the 2nd RTX 2080 and not the integrated graphics?

SLI needs to be enabled in the nvidia control panel, and it also needs to be set for the specific game. If the drivers detect there's an SLI profile for the game, it should do that automatically.

Is the SLI bridge physically installed?

These are older games but still:

GTX 1080 Ti SLI Performance in 25 Games

11.11.2017 Update: For the most up-to-date SLI benching results using Core i7-8700K at 4.6GHz, please see The GTX 1070 Ti SLI Performance Review vs. the ... Read more

babeltechreviews.com

And on Turing cards:

NVIDIA SLI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080 with NVLink Review

In our Turing NVLink review, we test RTX 2080 Ti SLI against RTX 2080 SLI in 23 games and also include Pascal's GTX 1080 Ti SLI numbers. Our results confirm that NVLink does give higher performance than previous generations' SLI, even though game support could be better.

www.techpowerup.com

That you never get any load on the 2nd GPU means something's not quite right somewhere, either in the readings on the configuration.

I didn't say it would be bad at all, I said:

Just make sue it's not going to tank your performance first.

If you don't need and/or don't use your 2nd GPU, no reason not to sell it. Just be absolutely sure you won't miss it. Otherwise you'll then paint yourself into a corner where you need to sell your other GPU and buy a 3080 or something

Also, we don't know for a fact most games won't support multiple GPUs. They won't support it via SLI, but they can support it in other ways. Although I would be surprised if we saw wider adoption of multiple GPUs, at the same time I don't know that we won't

I do like modded Fallout 4 Though I'm pretty certain a 2080 wouldn't run my FO4 or SSE modded installs at 4k 60hz. In that it doesn't at 1440p on my 2060, and the 2080 would give a lower framerate at 4k than a 2060 at 1440p. But that's by the by..

Not even in FO4?

What are your main titles? / What games have you checked and seen no load on the 2nd RTX 2080?

What software did you use to check?

Are you sure it was reading the 2nd RTX 2080 and not the integrated graphics?

SLI needs to be enabled in the nvidia control panel, and it also needs to be set for the specific game. If the drivers detect there's an SLI profile for the game, it should do that automatically.

Is the SLI bridge physically installed?

These are older games but still:

GTX 1080 Ti SLI Performance in 25 Games

11.11.2017 Update: For the most up-to-date SLI benching results using Core i7-8700K at 4.6GHz, please see The GTX 1070 Ti SLI Performance Review vs. the ... Read more

babeltechreviews.com

And on Turing cards:

NVIDIA SLI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080 with NVLink Review

In our Turing NVLink review, we test RTX 2080 Ti SLI against RTX 2080 SLI in 23 games and also include Pascal's GTX 1080 Ti SLI numbers. Our results confirm that NVLink does give higher performance than previous generations' SLI, even though game support could be better.

www.techpowerup.com

That you never get any load on the 2nd GPU means something's not quite right somewhere, either in the readings on the configuration.

I didn't say it would be bad at all, I said:

Just make sue it's not going to tank your performance first.

If you don't need and/or don't use your 2nd GPU, no reason not to sell it. Just be absolutely sure you won't miss it. Otherwise you'll then paint yourself into a corner where you need to sell your other GPU and buy a 3080 or something

Also, we don't know for a fact most games won't support multiple GPUs. They won't support it via SLI, but they can support it in other ways. Although I would be surprised if we saw wider adoption of multiple GPUs, at the same time I don't know that we won't

Fo4 is about the only demanding game I have. Bo3 works np when it's updated lol.

As for the software to check that stuff I use the Nvidia control panel option to have a bubble in the task bar that I hover over and it gives me info on what all is loaded onto each of my rtx's.

All programs both system and user are loaded on one card but not the other. I don't know much on this stuff so I haven't messed with any settings out of fear of messing stuff up.

 

[Oussebon]

As for the software to check that stuff I use the Nvidia control panel option to have a bubble in the task bar that I hover over and it gives me info on what all is loaded onto each of my rtx's.

Just to be 100% clear, we're talking about the icon you get when you go into Nvidia Control Panel > Desktop > and tick "Display GPU Activity Icon in Notification Tray" right? This thing:

How to find which program is now running by NVIDIA GPU? - GIGABYTE U.S.A.

GIGABYTE How to find which program is now running by NVIDIA GPU? service, ensuring you have the best experience when using GIGABYTE products and services.

www.gigabyte.com

That doesn't tell you whether / how SLI is being used.

The program is considered to be running on the primary card, and so is listed under that, but that doesn't mean the 2nd GPU isn't sharing the workload.

I just tested it on another PC that has SLI working and confirmed:

Note the text on the left showing the GPUs are loaded to 79 and 75% respectively, while the Nvidia window gives no indication.

What you would need to do is use something like MSI Afterburner, which I linked a guide to above. Set up the on screen display to show each GPU's % load (and any other info you want it to tell you) and then check.

 

[dls1989]

Just to be 100% clear, we're talking about the icon you get when you go into Nvidia Control Panel > Desktop > and tick "Display GPU Activity Icon in Notification Tray" right? This thing:

How to find which program is now running by NVIDIA GPU? - GIGABYTE U.S.A.

GIGABYTE How to find which program is now running by NVIDIA GPU? service, ensuring you have the best experience when using GIGABYTE products and services.

www.gigabyte.com

That doesn't tell you whether / how SLI is being used.

The program is considered to be running on the primary card, and so is listed under that, but that doesn't mean the 2nd GPU isn't sharing the workload.

I just tested it on another PC that has SLI working and confirmed:

Note the text on the left showing the GPUs are loaded to 79 and 75% respectively, while the Nvidia gives no indication.

What you would need to do is use something like MSI Afterburner, which I linked a guide to above. Set up the on screen display to show each GPU's % load (and any other info you want it to tell you) and then check.

Yeah that is what I was referring to. I'll give the afterburner a go, thank you. Hopefully everything is working properly.