Alienware 13 laptop graphics amplifier

ChoKe iZ BOSS · Dec 3, 2014

I have just purchased a new alienware 13 laptop, listed below is everything you should need to know. I was going to buy a dock for this laptop but alienware now offers what is called a graphics amplifier so you are able to connect this to an external monitor and graphics card.

I was curious what graphics card can i get to put into the amplifier that will not be a huge bottleneck on the CPU?

I am not a "hardcore gamer" like i was at one time. I just want something that will work efficiently with the system.

The on-board graphics are Nvidia but the amplifier can take AMD as well so no worries there.

Any help is appreciated, thanks!

Items in this order
1 370-AANG 16GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600MHz (2x8GB)
1 490-BCKD NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GTX 860M with 2GB GDDR5
1 400-AGFB 256GB M.2 SSD
1 619-AGFX Windows 7 Professional (64Bit) English
1 338-BFRJ Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4210U Processor (3M Cache, up to 2.70 GHz)
1 391-BBUG 13 inch FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS-Panel Anti-Glare 350-nits Display

jasperhuang93 · Dec 3, 2014

No knowledge of the Alienware laptop specifically, or of Dell's external GPU amplifier (or whatever it is), but several years ago I owned a Sony Vaio Z (VPCZ216GX/L) which had integrated Intel HD3000 GPU on the laptop, and then an external Blu-Ray drive, which also housed an AMD Radeon 6650M GPU chip.

Worked like a dream and allowed me to handle games well with the heat being external to the laptop, but two months of travel sans the external GPU later, plugging it in when I arrived back at home resulted in BSOD, and needing an expensive replacement to to shorted mobo chipset by the connector on the laptop.

Unfortunate, but I wouldn't recommend an "external graphics amplifier," sounds like marketing hocus pocus. Laptop seems plenty powerful to to run games at mid-level settings. How much does the 'amp' cost?

ChoKe iZ BOSS · Dec 3, 2014

http

/www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/alienware-graphics-amplifier?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&sku=452-BBRG

That is the amplifier, read into it if you have some time. I think i will be fine w/ it. I am just worried the cpu of the laptop will bottleneck the gpu in the amplifier when i am running on an external display. Let me know what you think.

jasperhuang93 · Dec 4, 2014

I guess I misunderstood - it's interesting that Alienware provides an external solution for you to hook up any type of GPU you'd like up to a certain power pull. If you do a quick Google of your 4210U vs.. let's say a i5-4670k (which is still a plenty powerful CPU for running current games at mid to upper mid level with the right setup.

As long as you're not putting a GTX980 or something in there or something really powerful, it shouldn't bottleneck. It just depends if you're being reasonable with the GPU solution. A R9 280X seems like it'd be a pretty good fit - they pack a pretty solid punch by themselves (I recently came off a 280X crossfire system) - they're super cheap right now, too.

ChoKe iZ BOSS · Dec 4, 2014

Sounds good to me, I will be going with a 280x then. Thanks for the reply.

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