Zotac GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Core review - Introduction

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme CORE
The GeForce GTX 970 Is Still Going Strong 

Ok I'll share something with ya fellah as honestly, I did not expect to be reviewing a GeForce GTX 970 based graphics cards in the year 2016. Why you wonder? Well, two reasons really. The GeForce GTX 970 and 980 originally launched back in September 19, 2014. Yeah that's right, 2014! And up-to this moment Nvidia has nothing new to offer in this segment of the market. So is that awkward? Well, yes but for good reason. The graphics industry is in a slow slope and pace as they need to wait until 14/15/16 nm fabrication becomes viable in yields and volume production. That is estimated to start later in Q2 2016, but might run deeper into 2016 as we certainly do not know what products will be offered in the first wave either.

There's a second reason, after the GeForce GTX 970 scandal where Nvidia marketed the GeForce GTX 970 being a 4 GB one (it really uses 3.5 GB at full speed with a 0.5 GB segment cripled running at slow speed) I never figured this card to be relevant to the market again due to the negativity surrounding it. However it has gotten away with it, and sure I told you guys last year already that even at 3.5 GB (full speed) these cards are little gems whens it comes to performance. As such they are still an on-going hot selling product for Nvidia and their board partners.

So heck why not? We test the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme CORE graphics card. Housed in a dark looking design this card might just be what the doctor ordered. The card has 4 GB graphics memory (3.5 GB partition at full speed), is relatively energy efficient and factory overclocked for you. You will be surprised by how this card looks, how silent it is and how well it performs. The GPU used is the 28 nm GM204, the two derivatives created from it are the GeForce GTX 970 and 980. Ah, you noticed? Yes, correct, Nvidia decided to skip the 800 series to avoid confusion with some of their re-branded mobile parts. Maxwell is a new and sound architecture and as such it is released with a new series name. In this article we will have an extensive look at the architecture behind Maxwell, we will look at gaming performance from Full HD to Ultra HD. As mentioned, and I want to be very clear about this one more time, there was  an issue exposed with the GTX 970 series; this 4 GB card runs 3.5 GB of memory at full speed, and 0.5 GB at very slow speed. For the majority of end-users this is not an issue whatsoever, but it certainly created a lot of chatter on the web. We explained this phenomenon in detail here. If you care to be bothered by it, please skip the GTX 970 and go for an alternative product. However, we feel strongly that the issue exposed doesn't matter enough to make a substantial difference if you game up-to a resolution of 2560x1440.

Meet the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme CORE  edition. With this GeForce GTX 970, ZOTAX includes a product with a rather daunting factory overclock. This is the 3.5 / 4 GB version and comes factory clocked for you at a whopping 1,228 MHz with a Boost clock of 1,380 MHz. The memory clock is kept at a clock of 1,800 MHz which is 7,200 MHz for the effective data-rate. You can find this product under SKU code ZT-90107-10P in the stores. We will look at power and thermal characteristics and will serve you that on a silver platter with a nice photo-shoot here at Guru3D.com of course. Let's check 'r out, shall we?