ZOTAC GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme Edition

This month, ZOTAC sent us the highest factory overclocked 980 Ti we’ve tested to date, the GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme Edition. But before we explore the particulars of this card, let’s recap what NVIDIA brings to the table with its Maxwell-based flagship GPU. This GM200 GPU features 8 billion transistors crammed into a 601 square mm die made using a 28nm process. The 22 streaming multiprocessors in the GTX 980 Ti lend this card 2,816 CUDA cores, 176 texture units, and 96 ROPs. Compared to NVIDIA’s older Kepler architecture, this chip yields double the performance-per-watt. On that topic, this card has a 250-watt TDP and requires a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors to run. To enjoy this beast, make sure your PSU can handle at least 600 watts of continuous power. The memory subsystem of the GTX 980 Ti is very capable, even compared to NVIDIA’s other high-end cards currently available (save the 12GB TITAN X). There are 6GB of GDDR5 memory running on a 384-bit memory bus. The quadpiped memory on the stock version of the GTX 980 Ti is clocked at 1,752MHz, but ZOTAC has overclocked it by 53MHz to 1,805MHz. Although that doesn’t sound like much, it’s the highest memory clock we’ve seen yet on the 980 Ti and it’s more than enough to let you enjoy playable framerates in most games running at 4K resolutions. If you plan to run this card while connected to a 4K display, you’ll be able to use any of the three DisplayPort outputs or the HDMI output to do it. There’s also a DVI port on the card for legacy monitors with resolutions up to 2,560 x 1,600. One of the best things about this card is the factory overclock; the stock core and boost clocks are 1,000MHz and 1,075MHz, respectively, but ZOTAC’s card is clocked at 1,253MHz and 1,355MHz, respectively. We already know that it takes two 8-pin PCIe power connectors to supply the power, but ZOTAC’s oversized IceStorm cooler is what enables the GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme to hit those impressive core and boost clock numbers. There are a trio of 90mm EKO fans with multi-angle blades, a handful of large-diameter copper heatpipes to rapidly pull heat from the GPU, and a pair of aluminum finned heatsinks under ZOTAC’s signature carbon ExoArmor shroud.

The card measures more than two inches thick and just over 12-inches long. Other things we love about this card are the painted aluminum backplate and the OC Plus power regulation controller, which is an isolated PWM controller that lets you monitor the card’s stats, tweak voltages, and take your overclocking to the next level with the help of ZOTAC’s Firestorm software. There’s a 2-year warranty on this card, but if you register it online, you can get it covered for a third year. As you can see in the benchmarks, this card is the real deal. If you’re looking for a blazing fast GTX 980 Ti, with enough cooling capacity to handle even higher clocks, this is your best bet.