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Zotac GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme – The fastest 980 Ti available?

The GTX 980 Ti is not only a fast GPU but also a GPU that overclocks extremely well. This means that few cards for sale actually are running at reference speeds, 1000 Mhz,  and instead are overclocked at different levels. Zotac are no strangers to overclocking usually offering a wide variety of cards for each generation. Their AMP!-edition cards not only are overclocked but come with their own special cooler and thus when we got a question whether we wanted to review one of their GTX 980 Ti AMP!-cards we jumped to the chance, especially as it turned out to be the Zotac GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme-card. With a base core clock of 1253 MHz, 25.3% higher than a reference GTX 980 TI, this is so far the highest clocked GTX 980 Ti we’ve seen from any OEM. And just to whet your appetite, the card even overclocks further! Add to that 6 GB of DDR5 memory running at 7220 MHz (up from 7010 MHz) and a special silent tri-fan cooler (IceStorm – love the names) and it is clear that this on paper is the “king of GTX 980 Ti”. Can it deliver on its promises? Read on to find out.

Specifications

The Zotac GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme stands out with its massive 25.3% overclock against the standard GTX 980 Ti.

Zotac offers 5 different GTX 980 Ti-cards (we left out the 5th, the AMP! Omega, from the comparison below).

Name
SKU
ZT-90501-10P
ZT-90505-10P
ZT-90502-10P
ZT-90503-10P
Interface
Interface: PCI Express 3.0
Chipset
Chipset Manufacturer: NVIDIA
GPU: GeForce GTX 980 Ti
Cores: 2,816
Shader Clock: N/A
GPU Core Clock 1000 MHz (base)
1076 MHz (boost)
1253 MHz (base)
1355 MHz (boost)
1025 MHz (base)
1114 MHz (boost)
1051 MHz (base)
1140 MHz (boost)
Memory Memory Size: 6GB
Memory Interface: 384-bit
Memory Type: GDDR5
Memory Clock
7010 MHz 7220 MHz 7010 MHz 7010 MHz
3D API
DirectX: DirectX 12
OpenGL: OpenGL 4.4
Ports
DVI: 1 (2560×1600)
HDMI: 1 (4K @ 60 Hz)
DisplayPort: 3 (4K @ 60 Hz)
VGA: With adapter
Cooler
Blower
Triple 90mm IceStorm ArcticStorm hybrid cooler Triple 90mm IceStorm
SLI-supported
4-way
2-way 2-way 4-way
General
Max Resolution: 4K
RoHS Compliant: Yes
Dual-Link DVI Supported: Yes
Supported OS: Certified for Windows 8 / 7 / Vista

The main features are of course the same for all of the cards as they use the same GPU, the GTX 980 Ti. The GPU supports DX12 and OpenGL 4.4, it comes with 6 GB of DDR5-memory on a 384-bit memory bus and you get 3 DisplayPorts supporting 4K @ 60 Hz, one HDMI-port supporting 4k @ 60 Hz and a DVI-port supporting resolutions up to 1440p.

gou_z

While the other cards are midly overclocked the Zotac GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme stands out with its massive 25.3% overclock against the standard GTX 980 Ti. The GPU is cooled with a special tri-fan cooler that promises to keep the card cool while being whisper quiet.

For this card Zotac is selecting only the “finest” GTX 980 Ti-GPU’s and paired them with a impressive massive cooler. The result? A huge card that offer promises for even faster speeds.

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9 comments

  1. How are you providing SLI results with a slower card in the pool? The Zotac clocks down to match the slower card to create equal performance. Essentially you posted results of the eVga card in SLI mode, not the Zotac. Also, the system you are benching on appears to be gen 2 not gen 3 pcie. You’re not getting the full 40 lanes out the Zotac… I assume these things will have an effect on your test results, no? i have this Zotac card and feel with the configuration and testing method you didn’t do it justice, it’s my first Zotac, coming from eVga 780 then 980’s all in SLI and find the new AMP Extreme a mind blowing experience. Extremely curious to see a what a “real” real-world test of two AMP! Extremes running in SLI with full gen 3 support active.

    • Well, until I get two of these cards to play with any SLI-tests will be affected by the difference in clockspeed. That said I could follow the clock speed in GPU-Z and each card was actually running at their relative speeds so it doesn’t seem it is clocking down – however it needs to be in sync so yes, we do get a bit slower SLI-results than we could get. The SLI numbers though is more to show what SLi can do for you. you are correct that I am rocking on an older gen mobo/CPU which I noted in my test-rig info and I am in the process of swapping everything out for Skylake the coming days so unless Zotac needs the card back ASAP i hope to get some new SLi-testing in during next week.

    • I just picked up a Skylake i7-6700K and the ASUS Z710 Deluxe (http://www.asus.com/US/Motherboards/Z170-DELUXE/) and will instalkl everything and then do some SLI-testing to see if the scaling changes.

  2. Might be powerful, but I don’t trust Zotac 😛

    • Zotac is a more reliable edition compared to the plain but you’ll never get anything special and you’re likely to pay more. Then again if you’re looking for a more stable version of a unit where the special things like the 20th edition 980 for example mean nothing, zotac is the way to go.

      • I’ve tested a bunch of Zotac cards and their AMP! edition cards always worked well and provided nice overclocking featrures and good cooling. Still, even the “reference” cards of the 980 Ti overclock well so in the end you have to see how much you value factory overclocking and different coolers.

    • A fan of Zotac. They get the most out of their GPU’s but as a result, suffer limited longevity. I’ve had 2 of their cards die on me, roughly as I was just about to upgrade to the next version. Meanwhile all stock frequency cards I have from other brands (as far back as GeForce3) live to this day. On most cards the fans will wear out after about 3-4 years of regular use. In Zotac cards the GPU has a similar lifespan, which shouldn’t be an issue if you’re chasing high frequencies and tend to upgrade often.

  3. May as well buy reference card

  4. At that price I’d rather get a FuryX…

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