# Zotac GTX 1080 AMP! Edition 8 GB



## W1zzard (Aug 12, 2016)

Zotac's GTX 1080 AMP! Edition is one of the more affordable custom designs, retailing $30 cheaper than the Founders Edition. The dual-slot, dual-fan card is still overclocked out of the box and comes with a good cooler that uses lots of metal, delivering excellent noise levels.

*Show full review*


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## TheinsanegamerN (Aug 12, 2016)

Quite a bit of extra power out of the box for such a small factory OC. At least the cooler looks decent and performs well, along with being very quiet to boot.


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## Captain_Tom (Aug 12, 2016)

Jeez overclocking is so pathetic this generation for both AMD and Nvidia...


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## McSteel (Aug 12, 2016)

Yeah, and Zotac really went to town with that VRM, it could easily power double what the GPU asks of it... Well I guess we know what Pascal tops out at. On to Volta then


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## Lightning (Aug 12, 2016)

In the comparison graphs the card has 6 GB instead of 8.

Don't really care about this card in particular, but I appreciate your work *W1zzard.*


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## Nosada (Aug 12, 2016)

The graphs all define the card as 6GB, is this some sort of strange naming scheme, or just a typo?

Edit: Lightning beat me to it ;-P


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## avatar_raq (Aug 12, 2016)

I hate the yellow stripes on the back plate and the cooling performance is sub-bar when compared to ASUS strix and MSI Gaming cards. I would not give this card a 9.8!


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## xkche (Aug 12, 2016)

And Titan X Pascal?.


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## W1zzard (Aug 12, 2016)

Nosada said:


> The graphs all define the card as 6GB, is this some sort of strange naming scheme, or just a typo?
> 
> Edit: Lightning beat me to it ;-P


Fixed, just a typo


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## the54thvoid (Aug 12, 2016)

@W1zzard says:



> On the back of the card is a large super capacitor that stores energy, ready to release it quickly when voltages drop. This measurably helps smooth out voltage spikes, but is of no real benefit to the user. It doesn't improve efficiency, overclocking, temperatures or anything else; * it's shiny, though.*



I'm sold.


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## xorbe (Aug 12, 2016)

TheinsanegamerN said:


> Quite a bit of extra power out of the box for such a small factory OC.



Yeah I settled to run my 1080 at stock settings.  I don't really notice 5% more fps but I do notice more heat pouring out of the PC.


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## Agentbb007 (Aug 12, 2016)

xorbe said:


> Yeah I settled to run my 1080 at stock settings.  I don't really notice 5% more fps but I do notice more heat pouring out of the PC.


I feel exactly the same with my 1080 and also with my CPU i6700k.  Increasing my CPU voltage to get 4.7Ghz creates a lot more heat so I just prefer to run things stock to keep my room cool.  Maybe when it's winter I will overclock to help heat my room up but during the summer it's hot enough


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## Shatun_Bear (Aug 12, 2016)

Surely the price is a negative? $670 and much worse in Europe comparatively.


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## Caring1 (Aug 13, 2016)

"Temperatures are slightly on the high side, but not close to the thermal limit of 83°C"
Yep, because 82°C is nowhere near that 
Also that power consumption


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## Tomorrow (Aug 13, 2016)

Having owned this card for about a month now i can concur with the results. Tho i did set fan speed manually to 100%. Even though i have a noisy computer with too many 120mm ventilators to even remember, i was still suprised at how quiet the card was even at 100%. Also no coil whine that i have seen. Temps dropped from ~80c to ~70c. In terms of OC this card is not that good. It did 11Ghz on memory (up from 10Ghz stock) but so does every GDDR5X product out there. In terms of core the max stable i managed was 2063Mhz. Pascal moves in 13Mhz increments so thats two steps below the card in the review and 4 steps below FE. Another idea is to disconnect RGB and fans from the board and underclock memory - this should free up some of the available power budget for a higher GPU clock.

I was not pleaseantly suprised by the 200W board power limit tho. Wth were they thinking? I did know before the purchase that the double 8pin and supercapacitor were useless (as is the RGB lighting - atleast to me).
Atleast i did pay 700€ for it a month ago wich is not too bad considering that the availability was much worse back then.

My advice when buying any pascal graphics card is to forget power connector and vrm design and go for the one that has the best sound, looks and price combination. They all clock to ~2050Mhz more or less regarless of marketing slogans.


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## raptori (Aug 13, 2016)

The cooler is bad considering it's an after market and compard to the other :

ASUS GTX 1080 STRIX    68°C
Gigabyte GTX 1080 G1 Gaming    70°C
MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X    72°C


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## sith'ari (Aug 13, 2016)

Nice review as always, but i have a general comment to make.
I believe its time for @W1zzard to add more DX12 games at his reviews, -except Tomb Raider that he already uses-, since most of the other sites use at least a couple of those.
Ashes of Singularity, Total War: Warhammer (*especially this one because it's an AAA title), or Hitman (*is still the DX12 API problematic?) , would make very useful additions to the review.

P.S. My comment addresses mostly for the 2 comparable rivals, GTX1060 & RX480.  (*GTX1080 & GTX1070 are far ahead of the competition so the DX12 benchmarks for these cards aren't really necessary ! )


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## Tomorrow (Aug 13, 2016)

raptori said:


> The cooler is bad considering it's an after market and compard to the other :
> 
> ASUS GTX 1080 STRIX    68°C
> Gigabyte GTX 1080 G1 Gaming    70°C
> MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X    72°C


Strix and G1 are also noisier because they use 3 fans and a larger radiator with direct contact heatpipes. So it's no wonder they run cooler because of that. Gaming X however is superb considering it also uses a dualslot two fan design and is even quieter. So no - zotacs cooler is not bad - simply others are better either through sheer mass or just good engineering. Also they cost more - specially MSI. So you get what you pay for.


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## Jism (Aug 14, 2016)

Captain_Tom said:


> Jeez overclocking is so pathetic this generation for both AMD and Nvidia...



It's not AMD nor Nvidia, but whoever develops that 14/16nm process, that is causing horrible OC's or that AMD already pushes their card to their limit, leaving almost NO headroom for us.


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## qubit (Aug 14, 2016)

Looks like one of the cards to put on the shortlist. Cheaper and better than the FE version makes it a no-brainer.


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## EarthDog (Aug 14, 2016)

Tomorrow said:


> Having owned this card for about a month now i can concur with the results. Tho i did set fan speed manually to 100%. Even though i have a noisy computer with too many 120mm ventilators to even remember, i was still suprised at how quiet the card was even at 100%. Also no coil whine that i have seen. Temps dropped from ~80c to ~70c. In terms of OC this card is not that good. It did 11Ghz on memory (up from 10Ghz stock) but so does every GDDR5X product out there. In terms of core the max stable i managed was 2063Mhz. Pascal moves in 13Mhz increments so thats two steps below the card in the review and 4 steps below FE. Another idea is to disconnect RGB and fans from the board and underclock memory - this should free up some of the available power budget for a higher GPU clock.
> 
> I was not pleaseantly suprised by the 200W board power limit tho. Wth were they thinking? I did know before the purchase that the double 8pin and supercapacitor were useless (as is the RGB lighting - atleast to me).
> 
> My advice when buying any pascal graphics card is to forget power connector and vrm design and go for the one that has the best sound, looks and price combination. They all clock to ~2050Mhz more or less regarless of marketing slogans.


Which has essentially all been the same the past couple of generations really. Nvidia neutered their cards years ago. AIBs have limited headroom per nvidia. Your best bet is to get a modded bios.

Pricing will adjust.. in fact we are seeing it now already as there are a few aftermarket cards below the FE price (newegg). There are a few which should be on the short list. 



Jism said:


> It's not AMD nor Nvidia, but whoever develops that 14/16nm process, that is causing horrible OC's or that AMD already pushes their card to their limit, leaving almost NO headroom for us.


Really, it's NVIDIA. With pascal, they have gotten more aggressive with their boost clocks leaving less headroom. Base clocks on some cards are 1607 mhz and it's boosting to nearly 2K at stock.


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## raptori (Aug 14, 2016)

Tomorrow said:


> Strix and G1 are also noisier because they use 3 fans and a larger radiator with direct contact heatpipes. So it's no wonder they run cooler because of that. Gaming X however is superb considering it also uses a dualslot two fan design and is even quieter. So no - zotacs cooler is not bad - simply others are better either through sheer mass or just good engineering. Also they cost more - specially MSI. So you get what you pay for.



1st thing the card doesn't get noisier because it has 3 fans , actually 3 fans might give the opposite since they can spin at lower speed to achieve same results as two fans do , secondly direct contact heat-pipes have nothing to do with noise level directly in fact it may result in a lower noise situation since they conduct heat more efficiently thus more efficient cooling with less fan speed , the same goes for the large radiator .

I'll take ASUS as example since you brought it to compare: Zotac Noise level at max is 32dBA , ASUS Noise level at max is 33dBA , ِASUS reach 68° while the fan on auto while you get 70° with 100% fan as you said which will obviously surpass the 32dBA since in the review it's on auto , both of them take 2 slot ( actually all but Palit use 2 slot ) so no one is better in this matter  , ASUS in only $9 more than Zotac and GIGABYTE is $21 cheaper so no it's not " you get what you pay for " , and if Zotac doesn't use direct contact and ASUS do and get better result then that's a plus for ASUS and you said it like it's a downside , those 9-13° difference between the 3 cards and Zotac while all on auto definitely shows that Zotac comes with a bad cooler , period


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## Tomorrow (Aug 14, 2016)

I dont care. Im happy with my card. Changing the card now would get me a quieter card and thats it. Im waiting for Volta now. Not much point in going from 1080 to Titan XP or Ti (if they make one).


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## EarthDog (Aug 14, 2016)

Nobody was trying to get you to switch cards, just correcting some of the misinformation that was posted.


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## neomoz (Aug 15, 2016)

I own this card and I believe the power limit is 230w, I've backed this up using Hwinfo which reports 100% use is 230w on card. It's very rare to hit 100% power limit even overclocked with volts jacked up. 

This is why the temps are much higher, the card is allowed to spike its power use much more than other cards, also the fan curve is very conservative. By using a custom curve the temps drop dramatically and noise levels are still extremely low.

My card maxes out at 2063mhz/5500memory. I find after long gaming sessions the clock under full load and temps will settle at 2012, I never throttle under 2000mhz. My temps with a fan curve that is 30%@40c linear ramp to 100%@85c delivers temps at 72c, card is still very quiet and no coil whine. Pretty happy with it, good value for the money imo($640 off amazon).


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## Dethroy (Aug 15, 2016)

raptori said:


> 1st thing the card doesn't get noisier because it has 3 fans [...]


While it could be quieter due to lower rpm, the same card with 2 fans at the same rpm would definately be quieter - and I think this was what he was trying to get at...

*



			Formulas: Δ L = 10×log n or n = 10(ΔL/10)
		
Click to expand...

*


> _Δ_ _L_ = level difference; _n_ = number of equal loud sound sources.
> 
> _n_ = *2* equally loud incoherent sound sources result in a higher level of
> 10 × log 2 = *+3.01 dB* compared to the case that only one source is available.
> ...


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## neonadia (Aug 19, 2016)

I bought this card last month, everything good at first. 
However yesterday, the fan on the right side got loose and keep hitting the metal.


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## EarthDog (Aug 19, 2016)

Bad luck.. tighten it down if you can, or RMA it.


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## neonadia (Aug 19, 2016)

EarthDog said:


> Bad luck.. tighten it down if you can, or RMA it.


Thanks, I already RMA it.
 I can't imagine why the quality of Zotac is so poor.


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## EarthDog (Aug 19, 2016)

I could see your point if this was actually not a one off problem. Stuff happens.


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## neonadia (Aug 19, 2016)

EarthDog said:


> I could see your point if this was actually not a one off problem. Stuff happens.


I remembered my old Zotac gtx680 got the similar problem and I thought this would not happen again in the new generation.
I should say I am pretty disappointed with this brand. 
Despite the poor quality, the Zotac 1080 AMP! is a very good design card, good shape, reasonable cost and great performance.


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## EarthDog (Aug 19, 2016)

Its a completely different fan... stuff happens man. If this was a real QC problem, we would have heard this issue rampantly. its a one off.


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## Nero (Aug 29, 2016)

I'm running a gtx 980ti and although this card looks impressive, I'm not sure what the need is for a card like this. I run games at the max and see no chopping, delays etc, and see no point in these cards when older siblings still work.

What am I missing?


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## EarthDog (Aug 29, 2016)

A lot...

You probably only run at 1920x1080.. There are many that play at 2560x1440 or 5760x1080 or even 4K. A single 980Ti can't handle 4K very well at Ultra settings in many AAA titles.


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## Tomorrow (Aug 29, 2016)

A single 980Ti cant even handle 1440p at max settings. I recently got Rise of the Tomb Raider and my overclocked GTX 1080 cant get stable 60fps @ 1440p at max settings so i had to play with the settings a bit to get stable 60fps.


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## EarthDog (Aug 29, 2016)

It can for 95%+ of titles. It's a fine 1440p card for a solid year or two. I'd also consider it almost like a Crysis one off.. but two titles, lol!


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## neonadia (Sep 15, 2016)

Nero said:


> I'm running a gtx 980ti and although this card looks impressive, I'm not sure what the need is for a card like this. I run games at the max and see no chopping, delays etc, and see no point in these cards when older siblings still work.
> 
> What am I missing?



Even in 1080p, 980ti could not achieve a stable frame rate over 60fps in the maximum settings of The Witcher 3.


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## Saulo (Jan 2, 2017)

neonadia said:


> I bought this card last month, everything good at first.
> However yesterday, the fan on the right side got loose and keep hitting the metal.



I wonder if the fans of my card are working as they should be...

does it sound normal to you? :









it's like a rattling sound, I can't hear it with the side panel closed, though.


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## EarthDog (Jan 3, 2017)

Something is barely getting one of the fans....


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## Saulo (Jan 3, 2017)

EarthDog said:


> Something is barely getting one of the fans....



As long as it doesn't get worse over time, it's ok. I hope..


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## qubit (Jan 3, 2017)

It could be that one or both of the fans aren't quite right, or maybe it's just the way they are. You could try moving the cables a bit further away and see how it goes, as sometimes the disruption in air flow can cause fluttering noises like this.

How did you spin them up? Was it a utility like AfterBurner to manually spin them up? If so, you might be spinning them faster than they would ever go in practice when playing a game so the problem would be moot. For example, my Palit GTX 1080 remains barely audible (see TPU's review) when running a game, or even something really intensive like Furmark designed to heat it up. However, manually spin them up with AfterBurner and the card is now not quiet at all. However, it's an irrelevant test, not a reflection of its true performance, because normal use would never cause them to spin that fast.


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## Saulo (Jan 4, 2017)

qubit said:


> It could be that one or both of the fans aren't quite right, or maybe it's just the way they are. You could try moving the cables a bit further away and see how it goes, as sometimes the disruption in air flow can cause fluttering noises like this.
> 
> How did you spin them up? Was it a utility like AfterBurner to manually spin them up? If so, you might be spinning them faster than they would ever go in practice when playing a game so the problem would be moot. For example, my Palit GTX 1080 remains barely audible (see TPU's review) when running a game, or even something really intensive like Furmark designed to heat it up. However, manually spin them up with AfterBurner and the card is now not quiet at all. However, it's an irrelevant test, not a reflection of its true performance, because normal use would never cause them to spin that fast.



I used the FireStorm from Zotac to ramp up the fans to the max value at 100%, yep it's pretty similar to Afterburner, a bit worse though.
I agree with you, the fans would never go so fast in a real gaming scenario, with standard settings, no overclock, no 8k resolution, proper ventilation, etc
anyway, they're less noisy now, I don't know what happened!


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## Frick (Jan 4, 2017)

EarthDog said:


> Something is barely getting one of the fans....



LN2 is barely getting one of the fans.


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## tastegw (Feb 18, 2017)

just bought one of these to replace my titan that i have had for a few years now.

after reading many many reviews, im just crossing my fingers that i do not get the unlucky doa or high heat issues that others have reported.


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