ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition Video Card Review

Introduction

When NVIDIA launched the Maxwell architecture and the GeForce GTX 970 and GTX 980 GPUs, I was sitting there watching it unravel in front of me at NVIDIA's Editor's Day 2014 in Monterey Bay, California. When I landed back home a few days later, I had two shiny GeForce GTX 980s waiting for me, but no GeForce GTX 970s.

At that time, I wasn't the Video Card Editor, so it wasn't important for me to get a couple of each of the cards, so I left it. Now that I'm sitting in the Video Card Editor position, ZOTAC was more than happy to send me over a GTX 970 in the form of its GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition. This is the first high-end ZOTAC card I've tested, with the other card being the GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition, which I loved.

The GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition kicks it up a few notches, which is an understatement. We have a faster GPU thanks to the GM204-based GTX 970 rocking underneath some exotic cooling. ZOTAC has deployed some impressive cooling chops to this video card, with a back plate that keeps it cool and a triple-fan system that ensures no matter the job, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition can handle it.

Quick Specs

ZOTAC has really driven off the road and onto the open road with this card, using its OC Plus technology, which is integrated real-time performance intelligence software, the IceStorm thermal design which keeps the card not only cool, but almost silent for most of its operation. We have a dual light active identification system that lights up differently depending on the load of the card. We have green or red on offer, or it will completely disable if you choose that.

When it comes to specs, ZOTAC has really added to the GeForce GTX 970 GPU with some impressive out-of-the-box overclocks, and more headroom allowed thanks to further overclocking. We have a triple-fan system with three 9cm fans that will keep the card cool, and dual 8-pin PCIe power connectors that will keep the card juiced up at all times.

Availability & Price

Amazon is currently listing the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition 4GB card for $399.99, which is great considering the value that you get out of it, which we're going to dive into more over the following pages. There's plenty of stock available right now with Amazon, but as for your local retailer you'll have to ring up and check as always.

PRICING: You can find the Zotac GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition 4GB GDDR5 Graphics Card ZT-90103-10P for sale below. The prices listed are valid at the time of writing but can change at any time. Click the link to see the very latest pricing for the best deal.

United States: The Zotac GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition 4GB GDDR5 Graphics Card ZT-90103-10P retails for $399.99 at Amazon.

Canada: The Zotac GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition 4GB GDDR5 Graphics Card ZT-90103-10P retails for CDN$623.78 at Amazon Canada.

The Packaging & Box Contents

The front of the box on the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition might look plain, but there's some cardboard over the better box inside. You can see the tease of it in the upper left hand corner, with the textured box underneath. We can see that we have 4GB of VRAM, OC+ Plus technology, Ice Storm and Light.id technologies.

On the back, we have a rundown of all of the various NVIDIA technologies, the minimum system requirements, and more details on the technologies that were teased on the front of the box.

There's not much going on with the sides of the box.

On the top and bottom of the box, again, not much going on - but we see that ZOTAC take pride in splashing the top and bottom with a great design. They could've cut some corners and just had it quite plain, but I'm enjoying the look here.

Opening the box, the card is very well secured in its cushioning.

Apart from the card, this is what we have in the box. We have a DVI to D-sub connector, two PCIe power connectors, a digital audio cable, and a user's manual.

Detailed Look

ZOTAC has crafted a beautiful video card with its GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition, where it looks so over-the-top, with its flashy LEDs and huge backplate. But you know what? It's a hot mess of a card, and I fell in love with the look instantly. ZOTAC, never change, please?

Starting with the front of the card, we can see the triple-fan cooler and the three LEDs. The two strips on the outer fans are LEDs, and so is the big plastic housing on top.

On the back of the card, we have the huge back plate covering the entire card. To the left, we have the OC+ chip, in the middle, we have some Power Boost chips, and to the right, we can see the two SLI connectors that allow 4-way SLI.

A look from the top of the card, where to the far right, we can see the two 8-pin PCIe power connectors.

And again, from the bottom of the card.

A closer look at the two 8-pin PCIe power connectors.

A few close up shots of the elaborate cooling setup that ZOTAC has deployed onto the GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition.

Probably my favorite shot of the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition.

Card Specifications & Cooling Setup

Card Specifications

ZOTAC has built a great video card with the GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition, in many ways. Not only do we have a factory overclocked card, but we have some serious cooling with the triple fan IceStorm cooling system, some even more overclocking headroom, a reactive LED lightning system, customized Power+ circuitry, advanced OC Plus real-time performance intelligence, and the FireStorm Gamer Mode that allows for some tuning to the card.

Here we have the detailed specifications.

Using these specifications, we'll compare the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition against the reference GTX 970 from NVIDIA. The reference GeForce GTX 970 has a Base Clock of 1050MHz, with a Boost Clock of 1178MHz. The memory is locked at 7GHz, providing 224GB/sec of memory bandwidth across its 256-bit memory bus.

The ZOTAC card, on the other hand, bumps up the Base Clock from 1050MHz to 1203MHz, while the Boost Clock has been increased from 1178MHz to 1355MHz. ZOTAC has also overclocked the 4GB of VRAM from 7GHz, to 7.2GHz, a 200MHz overclock. This provides a little bump on the memory bandwidth, from 224GB/sec to 230.4GB/sec.

The overclock on the card is impressive, but what is more impressive is that there is some serious headroom left on an already nice factory overclock. We'll go into that more later on in the review.

Cooling Setup

ZOTAC has deployed its IceStorm cooling on the GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition video card, which keeps the card seriously cool under the harshest of loads. The IceStorm cooler uses a hybrid heat sink design that combines the best thermal capabilities of copper, and aluminum to ensure that it is pulling as much heat from the GPU and dissipating it.

Better yet, is that each heat pipe is covered in a silver coating, something that allows the smoother surface to reduce air resistance, all the while provides improved heat transfer properties that pushes the heat to the aluminum fins.

Next, we have ZOTAC's ExoArmor, which is a "functional aesthetic touch to the IceStorm cooling system" that helps push air and reduce turbulence to smooth out airflow, reduce vibrations and noise. ZOTAC has used thermal plates that provide direct contact to the VRAM on the card, while the metal back plate helps out for maximum cooling under even the most extreme overclocking. ZOTAC has used water transfer printing that finishes off the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition with a carbon fiber finish that looks great.

Now, onto Power+, which provides improved power delivery under the most intense of situations - whether it's in the middle of that important game, or under a super stressful overclock. ZOTAC's Power+ monitors the GPU's power requirements all in real-time, optimizing the power delivery circuitry for the best stability. All the while, it is minimizing wasted energy for long term reliability and added performance.

The final two technologies that make up the cooling and outer housing of the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition, are OC Plus and LIGHT.id. Starting with OC Plus, it is ZOTAC's independent power regulation controller that is in constant communication with the video card through an internal bus and talks with ZOTAC's overclocking software, FireStorm through an external USB connection.

When the OC Plus controller is connected through USB to the PC, advanced options are made available to users. This includes voltage adjustment, status monitoring, and other detailed overclocking options that get enabled within FireStorm.

One of the more unique parts of the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition is the LIGHT.id system, which has two colors: green and red. The LIGHT.id system will adapt to the load conditions on your GPU, breathing a green light during light load, or red during increased load. The lights can be disables, and personalized through the FireStorm software.

Testing Method & Test System Configuration

Note - Lack of GPUs

We've been slowing reviewing GPUs, and after this review we will be adding some of the higher-end AMD Radeon GPUs to our benchmark charts. We have a Radeon R9 290X, Radeon R9 295X2 and a few others that we're going to throw into the line up very shortly.

Testing Method

Because I'm just starting out reviewing GPUs, we're going to slowly evolve our benchmarking setup. I'm not going to dive into the deep end and start testing out real-time FPS, as this will hurt the quality of the reviews. Instead, I'd like to nail these initial reviews and then we can start doing real-time numbers of games like Far Cry 4, and Star Citizen. For now, I've played Battlefield 4 on a 64-player server to provide some real-world performance numbers.

For now, I'm going to be using the same suite of benchmarks I've been using on my Tweakipedia articles, which uses a mix of synthetic benchmarks with Futuremark's 3DMark and Unigine Heaven. After that, we have a bunch of titles with built-in benchmarks (which does not represent actual in-game performance) but they are repeatable for you at home to gauge the performance of your PC or GPU.

Over time, I will be adding in new benchmarks and a new section that will concentrate solely on real-time gaming benchmarks. This will take more time per review, as I'll have to invest time into actually physically playing the games, but it'll be worth it in the long run. For now, let's get right into the synthetic benchmarks and see how this ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition performs.

Something Different

Most people purchasing the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition will be gaming at various resolutions ranging from 1080p to 1440p, or even 4K. The card can handle all three resolutions without a problem, but I found the sweet spot on the card to be 1440p, especially on our ASUS ROG Swift PG278Q monitor, with its 144Hz refresh rate and G-SYNC technology.

Test System Configuration

We only recently built our new X99-powered system, something you can read about here. As for the detailed specifications, this is what we're running:

• CPU: Intel Core i7 5820K processor w/Corsair H110 cooler
• Motherboard: GIGABYTE X99 Gaming G1 Wi-Fi
• RAM: 16GB Corsair Vengeance 2666MHz DDR4
• Storage: 240GB SanDisk Extreme II and 480GB SanDisk Extreme II
• Chassis: Lian Li T60 Pit Stop
• PSU: Corsair AX1200i digital PSU
• Software: Windows 7 Ultimate x64

We're running the system at stock CPU speeds, which will provide more of a 'real-world' feel to our benchmarks. Sure, this isn't an i7-5960X at 5GHz, but what person is going to team up an incredibly expensive CPU with a mid-range GPU? Not many.

Our GPU tests are changing, shifting toward more of a real-world feel. But don't worry, we will be doing some crazy balls-to-the-wall tests that will see serious overclocks, Extreme Edition processors, and much more in the coming months. For the most part, we will be doing more real-world testing by teaming up the right processor with the right GPU in its price category.

Even still, most people would be running an LGA 1150 socket Core i5 or mid-range AMD FX-8350 with a GeForce GTX 970, so we're still giving it some better guts as a CPU.

Benchmarks - Synthetic (3DMark and Heaven)

3DMark Fire Strike - 1080p

3DMark Fire Strike Extreme - 1440p

3DMark Fire Strike Ultra - 4K

Heaven - 1080p

Heaven - 1440p

Heaven - 4K

Starting off with our 3DMark test at 1080p, we see the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition getting close to that of the reference GeForce GTX 980, while easily beating the GeForce GTX 780.

Moving on to the 1440p 'Fire Strike Extreme' test, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition once again beats the GTX 780, and continues to get close to the score of the GTX 980. Scaling up to the 4K test on 3DMark, we see that the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition is in the same position: losing to the GTX 980, but beating the GTX 780.

When we tried out Unigine Heaven, we can see that at 1080p the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition is just 10% shy of the results of the reference GeForce GTX 980 from NVIDIA, and easily beats the pants off of the GTX 780. At 1440p, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition loses to the GTX 780 and GTX 980, while at 4K the same story applies.

Game Benchmarks (1080p)

Battlefield 4

This is one game that we did differently, as it does not feature a built-in benchmarking feature. When it comes to Battlefield 4, there are countless ways you can benchmark it. Some find a spot in the single player campaign which is easily repeatable, and use that. For our testing, we've chosen to use a 64-player online multiplayer server for real-time performance statistics.

We joined a 64-player map and played for five minutes using FRAPS, pulling our minimum/average and maximum FPS. We did this for each test, we run the game for 5 minutes at 1080p/1440p and 4K two times each. One time with Medium settings, and another with a custom Ultra preset (disabling AA). It's time consuming, but it gives us a perfect look into true real-world performance.

And again, this time with the Ultra preset.

GRID Autosport

Metro: Last Light

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Thief

Sniper Elite 3

Tomb Raider

BioShock Infinite

DiRT Showdown

Batman: Arkham Origins

You can find our performance summary of all of our gaming tests later in the review.

Game Benchmarks (1440p)

Battlefield 4

GRID Autosport

Metro: Last Light

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Thief

Sniper Elite 3

Tomb Raider

BioShock Infinite

DiRT Showdown

Batman: Arkham Origins

You can find our performance summary of all of our gaming tests later in the review.

Performance - 4K

Battlefield 4

GRID Autosport

Metro: Last Light

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Thief

Sniper Elite 3

Tomb Raider

BioShock Infinite

DiRT Showdown

Batman: Arkham Origins

You can find our performance summary of all of our gaming tests later in the review.

Performance Summary

How Does the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition Stack Up?

NVIDIA's Maxwell architecture is doing most of the work here, but ZOTAC has placed some important technologies onto the GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition to ensure that it's a lucrative buy against competing cards from other brands.

We don't have any other GeForce GTX 970s to compare it against just yet, but we can look at the performance of it between the GTX 780 and GTX 980.

Performance at 1080p

Starting with our real-world benchmark, playing a 64-player match of Battlefield 4, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition has absolutely identical performance at 1080p to our reference GeForce GTX 980 with 169FPS average with the Medium preset. Turning it up to the Ultra preset (with AA disabled), we see the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition with near identical performance to the GTX 980, once again - the 970 scores 110FPS, beating the GTX 980 by a single frame per second.

The performance of the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition in most of our tests at 1080p was pretty much even with the reference GeForce GTX 980, which is great considering the GTX 980 is $550+, while the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition is just $400.

In games like GRID Autosport, we're seeing a huge 137FPS average at 1080p, while taxing titles like Metro: Last Light is pushing 75FPS average. BioShock Infinite saw a great 91FPS average, which is pretty much on the mark of the GTX 980 which scored 90FPS.

Performance at 1440p

Battlefield 4 with the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition at 1440p is great, as we have close to the performance of the GTX 980. The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition provided 124FPS average at 1440p, while our reference GTX 980 scored 128FPS average.

Turning it up to Ultra (without the AA enabled), we have a drop from the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition against the GTX 980. 78FPS for the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition versus the GTX 980 and its 99FPS average.

The performance of the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition starts to fade at 2560x1440, where GRID Autosport saw an average of 112FPS, while our GTX 980 pushed 126FPS. Metro: Last Light results were similar, with 48FPS average on the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition, while our GTX 980 saw 55FPS.

BioShock Infinite, while identical between the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition and GTX 980 at 1080p, things change at 1440p. The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition scored 62FPS average, while the reference GeForce GTX 980 was pushing 78FPS.

Performance at 4K

On Medium detail in Battlefield 4, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition keeps its ground against the reference GeForce GTX 980 with 79FPS average at 4K, versus 75FPS on the GTX 980. When moving on to the Ultra preset (minus AA), the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition loses out to the GTX 980 with 66FPS versus the 99FPS on the GTX 980.

Okay, let's change things up and go right up to 3840x2160, or 4K. GRID Autosport hits its 60FPS limit, with 60FPS on both of our cards, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition and GeForce GTX 980 reference card. The gap closes at 4K between the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition and GTX 980, with 45FPS average on the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition and 51FPS on the GTX 980.

Moving to BioShock Infinite, we see 53FPS on the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition, while our GTX 980 pushes around 10% more with 59FPS. All in all, not bad performance from the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition considering its $150+ cheaper.

Overclocking

Overclocking - Let's See How Far We Can Go

With a factory overclock already applied to the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition, I didn't expect to pull much more from it. Well, I was pleasantly surprised when I continued to push the card that it just lapped up the additional stress to its already overclocked GPU.

Better yet, I was using the card at a three-day LAN with some friends, where it was getting a serious thrashing. Battlefield 4, H1Z1, and many more games were played for hours and hours per day at these overclocked settings, with the card not missing a single beat.

Just how far was I able to push the card? Battlefield 4 was rock solid with the Base Clock at 1403MHz, up from the 1203MHz default speeds while the Boost Clock was at a huge 1555MHz - up from the stock 1355MHz. I was even able to play with the memory and its 1800MHz (7.2GHz) and get it to 1902MHz (7.6GHz) all stable in Battlefield 4 at 1440p for hours and hours on end. I didn't require any additional power going into the card either.

Battlefield 4

We have some great improvements with our overclock on the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition, with the additional speed adding 7FPS average on the Medium preset to our average frame rate, while the minimum FPS jumps from 91FPS to 110FPS.

The overclock on the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition with Battlefield 4 on its Ultra preset (again, minus AA) results in a huge improvement on both the minimum and average FPS. We jump from the 48FPS to 72FPS, while our average scales up from 78FPS to a huge 97FPS. We definitely can't complain about these results!

Metro: Last Light

Metro: Last Light wasn't too stable with this overclock, but when we did get it running, we didn't see much of a performance benefit from overclocking our ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition, with an additional 1FPS to our average, for a total of 49FPS at 1440p.

3DMark Fire Strike Extreme - 1440p

A huge improvement for 3DMark with our overclock on the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition, where we move up to close to GTX 980 performance. Over 10% additional performance, all for free. A great result, that's for sure.

Heaven - 1440p

Unigine's Heaven enjoyed our overclock on the card, seeing the average FPS go from 41FPS at stock clocks, to 46FPS with our overclock. This pushes us closer to the GTX 980 score of 56FPS, but it helps us beat the GTX 780 with its 44FPS. Not bad for free performance.

Power Consumption, Sound Testing and Software

Power Consumption

At stock clocks, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition and our entire test bed, was consuming around 280W of power. This is pretty damn good considering the grunt that this card has behind it.

When overclocking it, we found that the power consumption drove up to 330W for the entire system. This was during an intense session of Battlefield 4, which was really pushing our system to its limits. Not too bad considering we were getting around 10% more performance, which is a nice tradeoff for the 10% added performance.

Sound Testing

Sadly sound testing was not available for this review, but it will be added soon for future reviews.

Software

We took a detailed look at the FireStorm software on our review of the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition, so things haven't changed much there at all.

What's Hot, What's Not & Final Thoughts

This is where you can fast forward to the final section of the review, and get a quick recap and points on the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition.

What's Hot

A Beast of a GeForce GTX 970: The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition doesn't mess around - it looks tough, acts tougher and overclocks like a champion. ZOTAC take things to a totally new level with this card.

Huge Overclocking Potential: With a factory overclock applied, I didn't think we'd squeeze this much out of the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition, but here we are, with a massive overclock that was perfectly stable for countless hours of gaming.

Near GTX 980 Performance For $150 Less: In most of our 1080p and 1440p tests, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition takes swings at the GTX 980, which is great considering it costs $150 less. The GTX 970 is a powerhouse GPU, but ZOTAC takes it and runs with it.

Nice & Quiet: After coming in off a slew of GeForce GTX 960 reviews, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition can handle 1080p, 1440p and 4K testing, all without making a noise. Sure the fans spin up, but they never get to the point where you can hear the fans that much at all.

Maxwell Architecture: We continue to be impressed by what NVIDIA has achieved with Maxwell, with a near full family of GPUs powered by the Maxwell architecture. The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition continues this, providing the full suite of technologies that the Maxwell architecture provides.

What's Not

ZOTAC has impressed me here, as there's absolutely nothing I can say about the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition that is negative. Near GTX 980 level performance, super quiet, it has massive overclocking potential and so much more.

Final Thoughts

This is my fourth video card review, and while I can't believe I'm saying this: ZOTAC has knocked it out of the park with the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition. While I don't have any other GeForce GTX 970s to compare it against, I do have a lifetime worth of experience behind me of buying various video cards, and testing them through our Tweakipedia section of TweakTown.

I've got some GTX 960s, the reference GTX 780 and GTX 980s, as well as a slew of AMD Radeon video cards and I'm still impressed with what we have here today. We have near, or equal performance to that of the reference GeForce GTX 980, low total system power consumption, a slick design, huge overclocking potential and so much more.

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition is one of the best video cards I have in my arsenal right now, and it has replaced my reference GeForce GTX 980 as my daily gaming card. For under $400, you simply cannot go wrong with the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition.

PRICING: You can find the Zotac GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition 4GB GDDR5 Graphics Card ZT-90103-10P for sale below. The prices listed are valid at the time of writing but can change at any time. Click the link to see the very latest pricing for the best deal.

United States: The Zotac GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition 4GB GDDR5 Graphics Card ZT-90103-10P retails for $399.99 at Amazon.

Canada: The Zotac GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition 4GB GDDR5 Graphics Card ZT-90103-10P retails for CDN$623.78 at Amazon Canada.