Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme Review - Introduction

Oh dear Zotac ...
Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! EXTREME edition tested

In this review we benchmark the new Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! (Extreme edition), the product is a beast man, HUGE awesome cooling (literally) and it comes factory overclocked towards an entirely new level. Combined with the default goodness the GTX 980 Ti has to offer like the 6 GB graphics memory this product just oozes unadulterated raw gaming performance.

The GPU that resides on under the hood is big Maxwell, and oh man it's a freak of nature with that kind of game rendering powah! You'd expect a product with '980' in it to have a similar slightly tweaked GPU, but no Sir. Nvidia shifted a thing or two around, the 980 Ti is based on the BIG Maxwell GPU, the same GPU that is powering the Titan X. Obviously the product has been trimmed down a tiny bit, but trust us when we say, there's plenty performance to be found. This product comes with a luxurious six Gigabytes of graphics memory and with these specs, the GTX 980 Ti should be fetching a lot of interest for the true gamers among us. The GPU empowering the GeForce 980 Ti is big, this one has a massive transistor count; it is a slightly revised GM200 A1 GPU that currently feeds the Titan X its horsepower. So yes, a slightly different iteration of the GM200. The card has five display outputs: three DisplayPorts, HDMI and DVI-I.  Where the GTX 980 has 4 GB, this product has a nice 6 GB frame buffer, and close to a third more shader processors when compared to the GeForce 980, accumulating up-to 2816 of them playing the binary game in a GPU that has a whopping 8 Billion transistors (GeForce GTX 980 has 5 Billion). The card looks pretty identical to previous models with subtle changes here and there and with that familiar cooler shroud. Memory wise NVIDIA equipped its GeForce GTX 980 Ti with 7 Gbps memory, the fastest GDDR5 memory you can find on a graphics card today, that's until HBM (stacked memory) is released by the competition in the near future. Combined with GPU Boost 2.0 you will see this product is advertised in the 1076 MHz range on its dynamic clock for the reference products. The reference base clock for 980 Ti is 1 GHz. It's not that the card can't go any higher, but it is done to keep the product in line power consumption wise. With a 250W TDP, we are not complaining at all, no Sir. For the GeForce GTX 980 Ti, monitor outputs include DVI, HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort, this will vary a little with board partner products that are bound to get released after Computex, based on their own design and cooling. With a card like the GeForce GTX 980 Ti you will be able to play the hottest games including the Witcher 3 and Grand Theft Auto V at that whopping Ultra HD 8.2 Mpixels at a 3840x2160 resolution with a single card, in fact we are going to check that out in this review.

BGW - Board partners Gone Wild, yes board partners are going wild with their own custom designs. The all custom Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme for example comes with a default base clock set at 1253 MHz, the Boost speed for this product is listed at 1355 MHz ! To keep things cool the Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme comes equipped with the newly revised Ice Storm cooler with EKO fan that might be HUGE in size, but does cool well. At full load you will definitely hear this card, however the fans remain disabled when the GPU is under a set temperature at light GPU load. The product is armed with a  back-plate. Anyway, have a peek at the photo below. Next page please. 

GeForce GTX 980 Ti  AMP! Extreme edition from Zotac / PC Partner