Another day, another GTX 980 Ti review, this time from ZOTAC who sent us their AMP! Edition, their most-affordable custom design card and the only one on the market to retail at reference design pricing.
ZOTAC overclocked their card out of the box with a relatively small overclock compared to other cards we've reviewed so far. Still, out of the box, the card beats the GTX Titan X by a solid 6% at 4K, which makes it 10% faster than the reference design GTX 980 Ti. AMD's Fury X is 10% behind, too. I do wish ZOTAC had overclocked their card a bit more to make up some ground to other custom GTX 980 Ti offerings, which are up to 5% faster. A memory overclock would have helped here, too.

ZOTAC is introducing a new all-metal, triple-fan, dual-slot cooler with their GTX 980 Ti AMP! Edition, and I have to say I really like its construction. It comes in a stylish dark color theme, and the metal surfaces look so much better than plastic. Form-factor wise, the card isn't as tall as competing cards, which could be useful if put into smaller cases, but it's 30 cm long. The cooler does a good job at keeping the card cool as it actually delivers the lowest gaming temperatures of all GTX 980 Ti cards we have tested so far. ZOTAC also includes the fans-off-in-idle feature that lets you work, watch movies, or play light games without any fan noise at all. Fan noise during serious gaming is slightly lower than with the NVIDIA reference design, but at 40 dBA, it is still a ways from the whisper-quiet experience everybody is looking for. Competing cards, like those from EVGA, do better here. Maybe ZOTAC should have reduced fan speeds a bit more for slightly higher temperatures, but more competitive fan-noise results. Another thing we criticized on the reference design was the lack of a backplate. ZOTAC addressed the issue by including a great-looking metal backplate on their card.

NVIDIA's Maxwell architecture comes with fantastic power efficiency improvements and the ZOTAC GTX 980 Ti AMP! is no exception. While it does use a bit more power than the reference design, the increase is slim, smaller than on most other GTX 980 Ti cards we've tested. Furmark maximum power is the same as with the reference design, though, so ZOTAC did not increase the board's power limit, which would have helped unlock additional Boost Clock potential.

The GeForce GTX 980 Ti doesn't come cheap at a price of $650 for the reference design, but the good news here is that ZOTAC isn't asking for any extra money for their AMP! Edition. This makes the card the most affordable custom GTX 980 Ti, and I see no reason why you should go for a reference design card that runs slower, hotter, and louder. Thanks to the overclock out of the box, its gaming price/performance ratio is better than with the GTX 980 Ti reference or GTX 980. AMD's R9 Fury X at $650 lags behind in every metric except noise because it is watercooled, though the pump emits a high-pitched whine. So if you are looking for a high-end card this summer, the GTX 980 Ti is the way to go. Which manufacturer's custom design you end up buying doesn't matter because the differences are rather nuances you can pick between based on personal taste. I would, for example, recommend the ZOTAC AMP! Edition to people who will manually overclock and possibly adjust fan settings, or to those who don't care about noise so much or play with their headphones on.