Zotac Geforce Gtx 1080 Ti Amp Edition Review

When you're talking well-nigh the upper echelon of graphics cards it'due south Nvidia'southward GTX 1080 Ti that'due south the go-to GPU. There will, however, always be those who require a little more than power and, until AMD'south RX Vega comes riding in on its red horse, Zotac's aiming for their factory-overclocked GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Amp Edition (bloody hell, that's a mouthful) to be those users' new favourite card.

All this graphical grunt means aught if your monitor isn't up to the job, so make certain you pair your GPU with one of the best gaming monitors effectually.

With the showdown between AMD'southward Vega and Nvidia's upcoming Volta GPUsinching ever closer, hype for new gaming tech is reaching fever pitch. Zotac are looking to capitalise on the excitement with this overclocked take on the existing 1080 Ti carte du jour before 1 of the new GPUs emerges to snatch the crown.

But at $50 (£75) more than than the Founders Edition, is it worth the cost hike or is it better to pocket your coin and go on a Steam shopping spree? We fired upward the test bench and got to piece of work to find out.

Click on the quick links below to become to the juicy bits.

• Zotac GTX 1080 Ti Amp Edition benchmarks

• Zotac GTX 1080 Ti Amp Edition performance

• Zotac GTX 1080 Ti Amp Edition verdict

Zotac GTX 1080 Ti Amp Edition specs

The Amp Edition evidently has many similarities to the Founders Edition 1080 Ti – 11GB of GDDR5X memory, 3,584 CUDA cores, and a memory clock of 11Gbps amid them. You'd nigh think the Zotac card was based on the aforementioned chip or something…

All the same, at that place are some differences – most notably, Zotac have managed to squeeze more than clock speed out of the card, bringing it up to a 1,683MHz boost clock. That's 101MHz higher than the stock reference clock of the GTX 1080 Ti but it's still only the aforementioned amount many other partner cards are reaching. In existent gaming fps terms, information technology'due south hardly a mind-blowing bump in operation for those buying the Amp Edition and looking for a tangible performance improvement over a stock-clocked card.

Having said that, with some calorie-free overclocking, nosotros were able to bring the GPU clock up to around the 1.92GHz marker. And, realistically, that'due south what most people will be buying the Amp Edition for – chasing the overclocking potential to ramp the Nvidia GPU tech equally far every bit it'll go without having to sell another of their kids to pay for Nvidia's Titan Xp.

As a result of this increased out-of-the-box speed, the Amp Edition draws 270W of ability – 20W more the standard 1080 Ti. That's why Zotac accept beefed-upward the cooling, using copper contacts to draw heat abroad from the core likewise as thermal estrus pads and dual fans to keep the temperature downward and keep throttling at bay. Even overclocked, the Amp Edition really remains cooler than an untouched Founders Edition card.

Zotac's Freeze cooling office is a nifty characteristic, too. It'southward the name they give to their 0dB fan cooling pattern, which means the fans don't starting time spinning up until the GPU hits temperature. When you're not running any graphically intensive apps through your PC, the fans remain idle and the carte du jour silent. Zotac are proverb that through 'precision temperature gauging' and a widened temperature tolerance they're able to avert whatsoever of the stop-start stuttering yous can experience when the GPU temp hovers around that activation indicate.

If having the most colourful PC is your thing, the Amp Edition's SPECTRA LED lighting volition make a welcome addition to the light prove going on inside your case. You're able to customise the colour too, so if you were hoping for a uniform aesthetic in your case y'all're in luck.

Zotac GTX 1080 Ti Amp Edition benchmarks

Zotac GTX 1080 Ti Amp Edition operation

As you would hope with a factory-overclocked card, the Amp Edition exceeds the performance of the stock-clocked Nvidia version in well-nigh cases, but the functioning heave is so small it's going to be indiscernible in-game. Non actually what you want, is it?

Like we said earlier, though, people probable won't be buying the Amp Edition for the out-of-the-box operation, but to overclock it. Then what'south the overclocking like? Oh, information technology'southward none too heady either? Oh dearest.

Yeah, it'south not the respond nosotros were hoping for, but our benchmarking showed that, when we'd got both cards running equally fast as they'd get, our Zotac GTX 1080 Ti Amp Edition GPU actually performed slightly worse in most cases than our overclocked Founders Edition GTX 1080 Ti. The extra cooling and improved power componentry haven't really delivered the actress GPU functioning yous might have expected over the stock Nvidia version, then.

That said, the fans are impressively quiet even when we were giving the carte a real battering. You aren't going to continue your significant other awake with your late-night gaming sessions when rocking this menu. Conversely, the Founders Edition certainly isn't shy about letting you lot know its fans are running, and so it'southward certainly something to consider if fan racket winds yous up.

Every bit we mentioned in our Founders Edition review, $700+ is still bloody expensive for a graphics card. When comparing the price of the Amp Edition to the Founders Edition, $l (£75) more may not seem similar a huge corporeality, just it all adds upwards to a serious sum of money. Non as serious as the asking toll for a Titan Xp, but still…

Zotac GTX 1080 Ti Amp Edition verdict

Nosotros accept to admit it – nosotros didn't see this 1 coming. The whole purpose of a factory-overclocked card is to either provide a measurably speedier gaming feel out-of-the-box, or provide enough frequency headroom that y'all can push it farther than you might with a reference carte. But that doesn't seem to exist the case here.

On paper, the numbers suggested a bump in performance (albeit not a huge one), only sadly, that barely translates into meaningful frame charge per unit gains. We can't speak for the other partner cards' performance without testing them (many of which avowal the same increased clock speed equally the Zotac's, while Gigabyte's Aorus Xtreme clocks as high as one,746MHz), simply if you're really hungry for yet more than graphical ability you might take to bite the bullet and shell out for a Titan Xp. But that way madness lies…

In our humble opinion, information technology'd be worth waiting until the dust settles afterward AMD's Vega has joined the fray. Though who knows what the prices for current loftier-end graphics will be in six months?

Zotac'southward IceStorm cooling array is something to be applauded – for those without a great deal of living space, a loud PC can brand you the business firm pariah – but sadly, it doesn't make it much of an improvement over the stock card, fifty-fifty if it does have all the graphical goodness of the standard GTX 1080 Ti.

Aye, the Zotac is arguably sexier than the Founders Edition card, simply if your primary concern is wanting your PC to look like a disco ball when you kick it up, you'd be better placed using the spare money on LEDs and getting crafty.

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Source: https://www.pcgamesn.com/nvidia/zotac-gtx-1080-ti-amp-review-performance

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