Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Review — Pushing The Limit! — Page 2 of 9
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Home » Reviews » Graphics Card » Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Review – Pushing The Limit! » Page 2
by Peter Paul
Packaging and Closer Look
The box art of the Zotac GTX 980 Ti AMP Edition is pretty much similar to Zotac’s entire GTX 900 series graphics card. Most of the GTX 980 Ti AMP!’s features is written at the back of the box.
The package includes some reading materials, a Zotac sticker, a driver CD, two Molex to 8-pin PCIe adapter, and a DVI to VGA adapter. I browse the reading materials and was pleased to see that it was well written and properly laid out. Most of the time, we tend to disregard the reading materials included in the package.
Above is the front view of the Zotac GTX 980 Ti AMP! Edition. From this angle, the GTX 980 Ti AMP! is almost exactly the same as the GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Core Edition. However, the latter didn’t come with Freeze Tech, thus the fans are always running regardless of the GPU’s temperature or load.
Of all the Zotac’s GTX 900 series graphics card, I think their 980 Tis have the better looking back plate with their slogan “Push The Limit”. I’ll try to push this graphics card to higher clock speeds later.
The GTX 980 Ti AMP! has a total of 5 display outputs. The output ports includes: 1x DVI, 1x HDMI and 3x DisplayPorts. The card can support multiple monitor setup and you can connect up to 4 monitors at the same time. The DVI port can handle up to 2560 x 1600 display resolution, while the HDMI and DisplayPorts can handle up to 4K resolution @ 60Hz.
The graphics card draws its power from an 8+6 power connector and it is recommended that you must have at least a 600W power supply.
Of course, if you have lots of components installed on your system like multiple hard drives, custom water cooling system, etc, and specially if you plan to install multiple graphics card, you need to use a higher capacity PSU, preferably 900W or 1000W with 80 Plus certification.
The Zotac GTX 980 Ti AMP’s shroud has a two-tone or two-texture design. First is the plain gunmetal surface, and the other is a semi-glossy patterned accent. The heat pipes are also not exposed which I think looks pretty neat and clean. However, unlike the GTX 970 AMP Extreme Core Edition, the ZOTAC logo on this one doesn’t have a LED back light. But if you are resourceful and creative enough, you can customize the cooler and place a LED since there is an extra two pin power connector on the graphics card which Zotac hasn’t utilized.
Zotac uses the ICESTORM Technology in their cooler, which is composed of 3x 90mm fans and 5 copper heat pipes connected to a large aluminum fin stack and an aluminum base plate that also cools most of the memory chips.
It’s also quite noticeable that the cooler shroud and its wrap around back plate are a bit longer than its PCB. Aside from the huge aluminum fin stack and aluminum base plate attached to the shroud, there’s also another heatsink that is cooling the other components specially the VRMs (as seen on the photo below).
Above you see the front and rear view of the card’s PCB. If I am not mistaken the PCB is similar to the reference GeForce GTX 980 Ti.
Above you see the GM204-310-A1 Maxwell chip which is the core of every GTX 980 Ti graphics card. It’s basically a trimmed down version of the TITAN X’s GPU chip. The core is surrounded by twelve SK hynix H5GQ4h34MFR memory chips, for a total of 6GB.
Let’s proceed to the next page for the test setup I used to benchmark the Zotac GTX 980 Ti AMP! Edition.
Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! latest pricing and availability:
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Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 vs Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme: What is the difference?
58points
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
43points
Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme
Comparison winner
vs
54 facts in comparison
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme
Why is Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 better than Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme?
- 354MHz faster GPU clock speed?
1607MHzvs1253MHz - 1.
17 TFLOPS higher floating-point performance?
8.23 TFLOPSvs7.06 TFLOPS - 8.3 GPixel/s higher pixel rate?
128.6 GPixel/svs120.3 GPixel/s - 70W lower TDP?
180Wvs250W - 700MHz faster memory clock speed?
2500MHzvs1800MHz - 2GB more VRAM?
8GBvs6GB - 2800MHz higher effective memory clock speed?
10000MHzvs7200MHz - 36.6 GTexels/s higher texture rate?
257.1 GTexels/svs220.5 GTexels/s
Why is Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme better than Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080?
- 26GB/s more memory bandwidth?
346GB/svs320GB/s - 128bit wider memory bus width?
384bitvs256bit - 256 more shading units?
2816vs2560 - 800million more transistors?
8000 millionvs7200 million - 16 more texture mapping units (TMUs)?
176vs160 - 16 more render output units (ROPs)?
96vs80
Which are the most popular comparisons?
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
vs
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650
Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme
vs
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Ti
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
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Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060
Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme
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Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
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Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060
Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme
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Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
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Nvidia Geforce GTX 1660 Super
Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme
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Gainward GeForce GTX 1080 Phoenix GLH
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
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Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Laptop
Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme
vs
MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
vs
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Laptop
Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme
vs
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
vs
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Laptop
Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme
vs
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
vs
AMD Radeon RX 580
Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme
vs
Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Omega
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
vs
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060
Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme
vs
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
vs
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070
Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme
vs
Nvidia GeForce GTX 980
Price comparison
User reviews
Overall Rating
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
2 User reviews
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
8.
0/10
2 User reviews
Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme
0 User reviews
Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme
0.0/10
0 User reviews
Features
Value for money
8.0/10
2 votes
No reviews yet
Gaming
10.0/10
2 votes
No reviews yet
Performance
7.5/10
2 votes
No reviews yet
Quiet operation
5.0/10
2 votes
No reviews yet
Reliability
5.5/10
2 votes
No reviews yet
Performance
GPU clock speed
1607MHz
1253MHz
The graphics processing unit (GPU) has a higher clock speed.
GPU turbo
1733MHz
1355MHz
When the GPU is running below its limitations, it can boost to a higher clock speed in order to give increased performance.
pixel rate
128.
6 GPixel/s
120.3 GPixel/s
The number of pixels that can be rendered to the screen every second.
floating-point performance
8.23 TFLOPS
7.06 TFLOPS
Floating-point performance is a measurement of the raw processing power of the GPU.
texture rate
257.1 GTexels/s
220.5 GTexels/s
The number of textured pixels that can be rendered to the screen every second.
GPU memory speed
2500MHz
1800MHz
The memory clock speed is one aspect that determines the memory bandwidth.
shading units
Shading units (or stream processors) are small processors within the graphics card that are responsible for processing different aspects of the image.
texture mapping units (TMUs)
TMUs take textures and map them to the geometry of a 3D scene. More TMUs will typically mean that texture information is processed faster.
render output units (ROPs)
The ROPs are responsible for some of the final steps of the rendering process, writing the final pixel data to memory and carrying out other tasks such as anti-aliasing to improve the look of graphics.
Memory
effective memory speed
10000MHz
7200MHz
The effective memory clock speed is calculated from the size and data rate of the memory. Higher clock speeds can give increased performance in games and other apps.
maximum memory bandwidth
320GB/s
346GB/s
This is the maximum rate that data can be read from or stored into memory.
VRAM (video RAM) is the dedicated memory of a graphics card. More VRAM generally allows you to run games at higher settings, especially for things like texture resolution.
GDDR version
GDDR5X
Newer versions of GDDR memory offer improvements such as higher transfer rates that give increased performance.
memory bus width
256bit
384bit
A wider bus width means that it can carry more data per cycle. It is an important factor of memory performance, and therefore the general performance of the graphics card.
Supports ECC memory
✖Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
✖Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme
Error-correcting code memory can detect and correct data corruption. It is used when is it essential to avoid corruption, such as scientific computing or when running a server.
Features
DirectX version
DirectX is used in games, with newer versions supporting better graphics.
OpenGL version
OpenGL is used in games, with newer versions supporting better graphics.
OpenCL version
Some apps use OpenCL to apply the power of the graphics processing unit (GPU) for non-graphical computing.
Newer versions introduce more functionality and better performance.
Supports multi-display technology
✔Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
✔Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme
The graphics card supports multi-display technology. This allows you to configure multiple monitors in order to create a more immersive gaming experience, such as having a wider field of view.
load GPU temperature
Unknown. Help us by suggesting a value. (Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme)
A lower load temperature means that the card produces less heat and its cooling system performs better.
supports ray tracing
✔Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
✖Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme
Ray tracing is an advanced light rendering technique that provides more realistic lighting, shadows, and reflections in games.
Supports 3D
✔Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
✔Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme
Allows you to view in 3D (if you have a 3D display and glasses).
supports DLSS
✖Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
✖Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme
DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) is an upscaling technology powered by AI. It allows the graphics card to render games at a lower resolution and upscale them to a higher resolution with near-native visual quality and increased performance. DLSS is only available on select games.
PassMark (G3D) result
Unknown. Help us by suggesting a value. (Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080)
Unknown. Help us by suggesting a value. (Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme)
This benchmark measures the graphics performance of a video card. Source: PassMark.
Ports
has an HDMI output
✔Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
✔Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme
Devices with a HDMI or mini HDMI port can transfer high definition video and audio to a display.
HDMI ports
Unknown.
