ZOTAC GEFORCE GTX 1080 TI AMP EXTREME
Zotac is going after those who are looking for raw out-of-the-box performance with its AMP Extreme card. A look at the specifications shows that this is actually the highest clocked card of the lot, runing at around 100MHz higher than the MSI card at default settings.
However, while that’s nice to look at in theory, the 100MHz boost doesn’t quite translate into a large gain in practice, so clock speeds really shouldn’t be all you look at when choosing a card. Still, this is Zotac’s agship, and it is every inch a hulking, imposing beast.
At 325mm long and with three 90mm fans, this card requires a ton of space. It’s also rather thick, so you’ll need three PCIe slots to have room for it. This is also quite a loud card, so be prepared to put up with some noise.
A copper base plate is in direct contact with the GPU, and there’s a larger aluminum plate around it to help with cooling for the memory. Four 6mm and two 8mm composite heatpipes move heat away to the large heatsink array.
The VRM components get their share of attention too, but it’s less comprehensive of a solution than on the Aorus or MSI cards.
A black, nned heatsink sits above the VRM, but this appears to have been placed in isolation, and Zotac unfortunately hasn’t done anything to facilitate contact with the main heatsink.
That’s a good opportunity wasted, and some of the airflow from the fans that might serve to cool the VRM heatsink is even blocked by a rubber dampener on the main n stack, as it’s located close to where the VRM heatsink is.
The 16+2-phase power design is also achieved using phase doublers, the same as everyone else, so there’s nothing really special in this respect either.
The AMP Extreme is a literal heavyweight looking to play with the big boys, and there’s no doubt that it’s very fast. However, it loses out on certain design decisions, and overall feels less refined than some of the competition.