ZOTAC GeForce GTX 980 4GB AMP! Omega Edition OC Video Card Review

Pricing, Availability, and Final Thoughts

It's fair to say that NVIDIA will dominate in the next few months unless something major arises from the folks over at AMD. While it seems that AMD intends to respond with a price drop, this is an effect that will have a considerably bad snowball effect on all AMD models, mid-range and up. While the new GTX 980 4GB might've forced AMD to adjust the price slightly, like I mentioned in the MSI GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr Gaming OC review, that model is going to force a much more considerable price drop, which is going to push the price of cards like the R9 280x, R9 285, and R9 280, to name just a few.

The best thing for NVIDIA partners right now is that NVIDIA has put together the perfect formula; then they told partners: "do what you want." Boy does it seem like they've done what they want! The ZOTAC GTX 980 4GB AMP! Omega Edition OC is a true beast of a card, and honestly, it's not something that we would expect to see this close to launch. This is the kind of card we would normally see four to six weeks down the track.

Of course, this is going to bring a premium with it, and at the moment, we don't know exactly what that is. Based on what we're seeing from other non-reference overclocked cards, we'd say this particular version should be seen at around the $600 mark. That's honestly a really fair price for what we've got here.

ZOTAC has put a card together that offers some awesome performance. Thanks to the great overclocking potential the new GTX 900 series is offers, partners have had the chance to offer these really amazing out-of-the-box overclocks that give us a significant performance increase over the reference card. It seems the days of an overclock that will only see an extra three or four percent performance are gone. Instead, we're seeing gains of ten or 15% thanks to the amount of headroom NVIDIA has given partners.

ZOTAC has improved on NVIDIAs already extremely strong formula with a solid cooling solution, and the OC Plus feature, which is something that we clearly need to take a closer look at. With word going around that overclocking potential on these cards is in the realm of 30%, I have to admit I'm truly excited to see the kind of performance gains we can get out of a card like the ZOTAC GTX 980 4GB AMP! Omega Edition OC.

If you thought NVIDIA had baked the cake and put the icing on top, then ZOTAC has turned around and put the cherry on top. Playing with so much hardware day in and day out, at times it does seem a little hard to get excited about some products, but NVIDIA has truly lit a fire under me. I really have the desire to test these new GTX 900 series cards in more ways than one. Keep an eye out for a ton more GTX 900 coverage as we cover SLI, and finally get down and dirty with overclocking to see just what NVIDIA is offering us here.

Product Summary Breakdown

Performance (including Overclocking w/a)	95%
Quality including Design and Build	93%
General Features	97%
Bundle and Packaging	90%
Value for Money	95%

Overall TweakTown Rating

94%

The Bottom Line: With some added features and an awesome out of the box overclock, the Zotac GTX 980 4GB AMP! Omega Edition OC is just a true beast of a video card. These GTX 900 series cards are causing issues to the AMD line up and it feels like it's not going to stop anytime soon.

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