VERDICT:
The ZOTAC GTX 780 AMP! edition features a factory overclock which allows it to perform at the same level that a stock GTX 780 Ti does which makes this card a much more economically viable choice. And with the custom heatsink design it is guaranteed to run at lower temperatures while performing at high loads. The added freebies (Splinter Cell bundle) makes for an even more attractive purchase.
The base clock is at 1006MHz which is 170MHz higher than the stock card. The memory clock scales according to 1552MHz. The memory capacity remains the same as the stock card with 3GB of GDDR5 memory. 2304 CUDA cores makes this a good card for OpenCL programming as well but a Tesla card would be better. As far as SLI support goes, one can set up a triple-SLI configuration with these cards. So by all means this card has much more packaged into the same price segment.
Benchmarks
The card runs pretty fast on most high end benchmarks. The extra processing power is quite evident in all benchmarks and the card runs at par with the GTX 780 Ti stock card. The difference spans out in the low configuration benchmark but that’s a segment where these cards aren’t designed to be played out. Getting a high end card and playing games at the absolute minimum configuration is a fool’s errand. Even at ultra configuration the card manages to push frame rates in excess of 100 FPS.
The Tomb Raider benchmark is one that manages to stress out even the high end cards but since we are talking about the high end cards the cards do manage to output in the high 70’s and low 80’s. Yet again the ZOTAC 780 AMP! edition performs almost at the same level as the GTX 780 Ti which is the fastest card we’ve benchmarked at the time of writing this article.
The Hitman Absolution benchmark has a lot of characters on the screen at the same time giving us a look at how these cards would perform with games that utilise the GPU over the CPU when it comes to multiple objects. Even here the ZOTAC 780 AMP! edition performs as well as the 780 Ti, however, certain gamers may have an issue with games running below 60 fps. However, this being an in-game benchmark, there would be very few scenes where such levels of stress may arise.
Yet again, the ZOTAC GTX 780 AMP! edition continues to perform at nearly the same level as the GTX 780 Ti stock card. FPS stays in the mid 60s which should suffice for even the most hardcore gamer out there (for those who prefer a single-GPU setup over a dual-GPU setup).
Temperature
The Triple Silencer design pays off when it comes to keeping the card cool. Under idle conditions the card seems to hover in the mid 30s which is the same for most high-end cards. Our test setup does feature a relatively cooler environment compared to the average temperature outside so the temperatures we’ve obtained might not be replicated in a non air-conditioned environment. Nevertheless, the custom cooler keep the ZOTAC GTX 780 AMP! edition way cooler than all the other high end cards we’ve tested. At peak load condition the card maintained 65 degrees celsius.
Verdict
The ZOTAC GTX 780 AMP! edition features a factory overclock which allows it to perform at the same level that a stock GTX 780 Ti does which makes this card a much more economically viable choice. And with the custom heatsink design it is guaranteed to run at lower temperatures while performing at high loads. The added freebies (Splinter Cell bundle) makes for an even more attractive purchase.