Zotac Gaming RTX 4080 Super Amp Extreme Airo
Zotac’s premium challenger takes things up a notch.
The RTX 4080 Super was the last of Nvidia’s Super cards to launch. Though it’s easily the fastest of the three, it’s arguably the least exciting, even if it’s hard to complain about a card that’s faster than its non-Super counterpart, while costing less.
The RTX 4080 Super is essentially an RTX 4080 with a cherry on top. It includes the fully enabled AD103 GPU, with all 10,240 shaders unlocked. But while the RTX 4070 Super received a relatively large increase in shader count and the RTX 4070 Ti Super got more shaders and a memory system upgrade, the RTX 4080 gets the least exciting upgrade, with just an extra 512 shaders and a slight increase in boost and memory clock. An upgrade to the faster the AD102 GPU – even if it stuck with its original $2,219 price – would have been much more exciting.
Zotac’s RTX 4080 Super Amp Extreme Airo is definitely a premium card. It’s got a 60MHz factory overclock, a massive 3.5 slots worth of cooling capacity, and a full-length metal backplate. Plus, the RGB light bar running across the top of Zotac’s IceStorm 2.0 cooler is one of the best implementations seen on any RTX 40-series card.
Other interesting features include an RGB header for controlling an external strip and dual BIOS with performance and quiet modes.
Operationally, the Zotac is definitely capable. It was able to maintain an average boost clock of 2,764MHz, which is well above its officially rated 2,550MHz. Compared to the RTX 4080, it’s only about 5% better at 4K. That’s not an exciting gain, but faster is faster, and it will appeal to those upgrading from older generation cards.
Don’t forget the AMD competition either. If you don’t care so much for ray tracing performance or DLSS 3, the 7900 XTX is a formidable competitor.
The cooling capacity of the Zotac is very good, with a peak recorded temperature of 65°C after about 10 minutes of operation. Not bad at all for a 320W card. If there’s a weakness, it’s that the card is quite audible under a heavy load. It’s nothing alarming by any means, but there are better options if noise minimisation is critical for you.
The RTX 4080 Super isn’t much of an upgrade over the RTX 4080, but the point isn’t really to compare the two. It’s much more relevant to users of older cards. It utterly destroys the RTX 3090. If you take that in isolation, the RTX 4080 Super is a hell of an upgrade for any user coming from any RTX 30-series or older card.
While it’s a very powerful card, RTX 4080 Super is one of the less impressive members of the RTX 40-series’ Ada generation. If only because it’s still too expensive for what it is. We’d presume premium RTX 4080 Supers will fall well under $1,999 in the months ahead, and if so they’ll become a very solid option for a gamer that wants to build a rig and have it play every game for the next few years.
As for the Zotac Amp Extreme Airo, adding $150 for a cool running and high performing option is an acceptable if tougher recommendation given that cheaper pricing is the RTX 4080 Super’s highlight.
VERDICT
The RTX 4080 Super is a better RTX 4080 for less money, while this Zotac option is just able to justify its price premium.
Chris Szewczyk
“While it’s a very powerful card, RTX 4080 Super is one of the less impressive members of the RTX 40-series’ Ada generation.”