Review

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme Review

ZOTAC introduce a new custom GTX 980 Ti graphics card, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme Edition which is using NVIDIAs latest and greatest GM200-310-A Maxwell chip, build on the same GM200 GPU as the GeForce Titan X. Featuring 2816 CUDA cores, 176 TMUs and 96 ROPs where as Titan X features 3072 CUDA cores and GTX 980 features 2048 CUDA cores, 128 TMUs and 64 ROPs.

We like to thanks ZOTAC India for providing us the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme Edition 6GB graphics card for review. The new ZOTAC GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme Edition features 1253MHz of Base Clock and 1355MHz at Boost with 6 GB GDDR5 memory clocked at 7220MHz along with three DisplayPort 1.2 with 4K support @ 60Hz, a HDMI 2.0 port with 4K @60 Hz and DL-DVI port with 2560x1600 max resolution, giving full advantage of Direct X 12 with lower power consumption, higher performance and low fan noise at extreme gaming experience.

Now let's see what this ZOTAC GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme Edition has for us.

Features

Engineered to Game
See everything you were meant to see. Every intricate detail will appear in front of your eyes in jaw-dropping 4K. The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 980 Ti series is the fusion between power and beauty, equipped with a subtle-aggressive shroud on the surface to contain the power crammed within. This is the ultimate GTX 980 graphics card for serious gamers.

Ultra Performance
ZOTAC engineering pushes performance from every last bit of power, AMPing performance levels above reference right out of the box!

ICESTORM
An enhanced cooling system that goes beyond thermal design to blend extraordinary performance and style into a single architecture. Triple fans, copper heat-pipes, and a tight array of aluminum fins all combine to reduce noise and accelerate cooling for maximum gaming performance.

EKO
The latest innovation from ZOTAC, the dual blade EKO* (ek-oh) fan goes beyond traditional fan blade designs. The innovative design increases airflow by up to 30%, allowing more effective heat dissipation. EKO fan is the culmination of expert engineering and experience with each shape and curvature of the blade carefully designed to ensure highly efficient cooling while keeping noise level to the faintest whisper.

FREEZE
ArcticStorm comes embedded with the latest breakthrough from ZOTAC - FREEZE technology. FREEZE is an inspired innovation that will enable powerful video cards to become silent and reduce the wear on the fan system. When the user is not in action, the fans idle so users can enjoy the sound that they don't hear.

POWER BOOST
Because power without control is nothing, POWER BOOST* reduces ripple noise and minimizes power fluctuation resulting in a long lasting AMPed graphics card that handles itself smoothly and stably, even when pushed to the limit.

CARBON EXOARMOR
Carbon ExoArmor adds a functional aesthetic to the IceStorm cooling system to provide protection and additional durability. The all metal wrap around backplate and newly designed metal fan shroud frame with carbon detailing complete the appeal and provide a subtle aggressiveness while still enhancing the performance of the card by reducing vibrations to lower noise

FIRESTORM
Extract even more performance from your ZOTAC graphics card with the FireStorm software utility. Tweaking and tuning is quick and easy with an easy-to-use interface that presents users with clock speed adjustments, fan control , GPU monitoring functions, and more. With the Quick Boost feature, additional power is only a click away.

Specifications

Package

The ZOTAC GTX 980 Ti comes in a black/gray colured box with securely packaged in. A ZOTAC and AMP! Extreme Edition graphics and features highlights on front and the back of the box.

Inside the box

Along with the GFX card box also includes driver installation CD, quick start guide, DVI-to-VGA Adapter and two Dual 6-pin to 8-pin PCIe Adapters.

Looks

First look at this card and words came out of my mouth is “It's huge..", with a length of 32cm and height of about 13.5cm this card covers three slots on the motherboard. Card is having a metal fan shroud which is really solid and sturdy, gives a rich high quality feel and ZOTAC focused more on maintaining the aesthetics and sturdiness of the graphics card. Definitely this is one of the best looking custom GTX 980Ti .

Inside

Removing the cooler reveals a big copper plate with a center copper block which makes a direct contact with the GPU core and memory chips, soldered with six copper heat-pipes and connected with an array of aluminum fin stack and three 92mm fans(model : APISTEK GA92S2U rated at Dc12v @ 0.46A) for cooling.

Component Layout

Detailed PCB layout of ZOTAC GeForce GTX 980 Ti shows that, this card draws up to 375W power from two 8-pin PCI-e connector to drive eight phase digital power controlled by an uP1983A controller. And the onboard GDDR5 memory chips are from SKHynix with the model number H5GQ4H24MFR-R2C, specified to run at 1750 MHz (7000 MHz GDDR5 effective).

Testing

Test system configuration -

Benchmarks

Temperatures

Room Temperature: 30C

In idle, the temperature is real good and at full load running 3D Mark Fire Strike temperature was ok and fans were slight loud.

Power Consumption

Wattage reading as per displayed by APC Pro 1000VA (Model no. BR1000G-IN) UPS.

Pros

• Decent Out-of-Box Factory Overclocked
• 6GB of Graphics RAM
• Fan turns OFF at idle or low load
• Low temperatures
• Great looks with sturdy backplate

Cons

• Slight loud when playing games.

Conclusion

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 980 Ti is a great looking and solid build card with a decent factory overclock out of the box, offering a very good gaming experience. The card is not very tall when compared with other non-reference cards and will easily fit in most of the small form-factor cases. ZOTAC has done a great job in designing the cooling solution for the card resulting a low temperature at higher gaming load. Fans are mostly turned OFF at idle or light load, but under high load fans cycles between max rpm for few seconds than to a very high rpm as temperature goes high to low, making fan-noise slight loud.

As per power consumption ZOTAC GeForce GTX 980 Ti is a efficient card with very low power consumption at idle.

At the conclusion ZOTAC GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme Edition is a fantastic non-reference graphics card with great temperature and power efficiency. So if you are looking for a high end graphics card for great gaming experience this Christmas, ZOTAC GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme Edition is the best choice, worthy of our PC TeK REVIEWS EXCELLENCE Award.

Manufacturers Info

Thanks.

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