ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition Video Card Review

1. Introduction, Quick Specs and Availability & Price
2. Packaging & Box Contents
3. Detailed Look
4. Card Specifications & Cooling Setup
5. Testing Method & Test System Configuration
6. Synthetic Benchmarks (3DMark and Heaven)
7. Game Benchmarks (1080p)
8. Game Benchmarks (1440p)
9. Game Benchmarks (4K)
10. Game Performance Summary
11. Overclocking
12. Power Consumption and Sound Testing
13. Software
14. What's Hot, What's Not & Final Thoughts

TweakTown's Rating: 93%

The Bottom Line

ZOTAC has crafted such a great video card in the GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition, with near silent and sometimes silent operation, huge overclocking headroom and a quality card all-round. This is something to remember.

Introduction, Quick Specs and Availability & Price

NVIDIA has unleashed their new GeForce GTX 960 upon the world, but instead of talking about what makes the Maxwell-based architecture tick in this review, I've actually written a separate piece on NVIDIA's latest video card, which you can read here.

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When it comes to ZOTAC, they are a big brand when it comes to NVIDIA video cards, as they are one of their tighter partners who like to get unleashed with various high-end models that overclockers and enthusiasts really enjoy. ZOTAC were one of the first companies to jump at me when I jumped into the shoes of TweakTown's Video Card Editor position, and they were the first off the ranks to have their GTX 960 at my door the day after I got back from CES 2015.

ZOTAC has a full range of GeForce cards to choose from, but their new GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition is an interesting one. A few things to quickly tease you before you slide into the full review: ZOTAC's card only requires a single 6-pin PCIe power connector, and its dual-fan cooler completely disables if the card isn't at an appropriate load. Nice, right? Let's keep on with the surprises.

Quick Specs

ZOTAC has stayed very close to the default configuration of the reference design of the GeForce GTX 960 from NVIDIA. We have 2GB of GDDR5 RAM over a 128-bit memory bus (which isn't so bad, as we explained in our GeForce GTX 960 architecture overview article), three DisplayPort outputs, an HDMI 2.0 and dual-link DVI output, support for DirectX 12, OpenGL 4.4 and much more.

Availability & Price

ZOTAC has the GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition available right now for $209. The standard GTX 960 from ZOTAC is $10 less, at $199. This is an insane price considering NVIDIA launched the still very popular GeForce GTX 760 for $249, and the GTX 660 for $229.

With over double the performance of the GTX 660, the new Maxwell-based GTX 960 AMP! Edition represents some insane value for money as you'll see deeper into the review. You can go ahead and order it straight away, as there should be plenty of stock in retail stores across the United States, and most of the world by the time you read this.

PRICING: You can find the Zotac GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition 2GB 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 960 AMP! Edition 2GB retails for $229.00 at Amazon.

Packaging & Box Contents

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ZOTAC has provided a nice looking box, with a plain front. We can see in the bottom right hand corner that we have support for various NVIDIA technologies, including GameStream, GameWorks and G-SYNC, as well as DirectX 12 support for when Windows 10 ships later in the year.

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On the back, we find out that the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition video card supports ZOTAC's overclocking software: Firestorm. We have a tease of some games to come with Evolve and The Witcher 3, and then the usual box contents, of which there aren't many at all.

On the left hand side of the box, we have a full list of what the GTX 960 can support. On the right side, we have the specifications of the card itself.

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Inside of the box, you'll find a user's manual, extended warranty and quick installation guide, a look at ZOTAC's Boost Premium range of software, a ZOTAC "Pushing The Limits" sticker, a CD with drivers, FireStorm, Boost Premium and the Manual on it, and a PCIe 6-pin to molex power connector.

Detailed Look

ZOTAC has crafted a mostly plain, but still aftermarket look with their GTX 960 AMP! Edition card. We have a dual-slot card that requires a single 6-pin PCIe connector, with a dual fan cooler and massive heat pipe array underneath to keep it nice and cool. Let's take a closer look.

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Before you can use the card, you'll need to remove the sticker you see above. It also shows you that there is something that ZOTAC calls "Freeze Tech" which is "integrating performance, silence, and efficiency into cooling" so that the "fans will stop spinning in low loads".

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Looking directly at the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition, we can see the two fans that will keep the entire card nice and cool. Underneath that is a nice big heat sink and heat pipe setup that will draw the heat from the Maxwell-powered GPU, through to the fans that will push it out and away.

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On the back, I'm surprised to see a backplate on a cheaper card, but here we are. The backplate has a couple of uses: for one, it looks great. Secondly, it takes more heat from the card which is always good, and dissipates it behind the card. This is especially important when two of these are used in SLI.

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Here we have the single 6-pin PCIe power connector, which will keep the power consumption down on the GTX 960 AMP! Edition.

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The SLI connector is out in the open, making two of these in SLI nice and easy to set up.

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As you can see, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition is a very nice looking card indeed.

Card Specifications & Cooling Setup

Card Specifications

ZOTAC has two models in its GTX 960 ranks at this stage, the first is the normal GeForce GTX 960, while the second is the one we have here today, the GTX 960 AMP! Edition. The difference between them is that the AMP! Edition has some overclocking applied to it, with more headroom still, and a better cooling system.

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First, let's tackle the specifications between the two cards. The normal GTX 960 from ZOTAC has the same 2GB of VRAM on its 128-bit memory bus, which is passed down from NVIDIA's reference design. On the clock side of things, we have a Base clock of 1177MHz, and a Boost clock of 1240MHz. The Memory clock is at the default 7010MHz.

The AMP! Edition kicks it up a notch, overclocking the Base clock to 1266MHz and the Boost gets increased to 1329MHz. The Memory clock stays at 7010MHz, but we can play around with those clock speeds with the included Firestorm overclocking software.

Cooling Setup

The AMP! Edition card has ZOTAC slapping a backplate and ExoArmor to it, which not only helps it perform better under stress (and overclocking), but it looks ultra cool, too. We also have the company's Dual Fan IceStorm cooling system with the latest version of its FREEZE technology.

The normal GTX 960 from ZOTAC features the same FREEZE technology, but it lacks the backplate, ExoArmor and Dual Fan IceStorm cooling system.

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What is the FREEZE technology, you ask? Well, once the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960, or GTX 960 AMP! Edition reaches lower than 59C, or less than 13W of power consumption, the fans will stop spinning. Once this happens, it's obvious that the ZOTAC card operates completely silently. This is great for those with a HTPC or for those playing games like League of Legends or DOTA 2 which don't stress out the GPU as much as other games.

NVIDIA has gone to great lengths with its Maxwell architecture to craft one of the best, if not the best mid-range GPU the world has ever seen. A card that can handle 1080p 60FPS gaming, and in some games, not even have its fans spin up? Impressive.

Testing Method & Test System Configuration

Note - Lack of Video Cards

Because I'm only just starting out as TweakTown's Video Card Editor, I don't have a slew of GPUs to test with as yet. As our reviews of the GeForce GTX 960s continue into the coming weeks, I have other GPUs on the way. I can then throw in some numbers from AMD Radeon cards - but for now, we're only looking at the GeForce GTX 780 and GTX 980 both in reference form directly from NVIDIA, and the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition we have here to review today.

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. However, 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 video card.

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 960 AMP! Edition performs.

Something Different

Most people purchasing this card are only going to be gaming at up to 1080p, as the 128-bit memory bus and 2GB of VRAM is going to severely limit and hinder performance above that resolution. 2560x1440 (1440p) and 3840x2160 (4K) are going to be resolutions that this card won't be used for (mostly). That's not to say that you won't purchase this card for it, but I would highly recommend that people looking to buy any of the GeForce GTX 960s to only get one if you have a 1080p capable monitor, and plan to not upgrade for a while.

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:

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• 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
• Drivers: GeForce 347.25

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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 960, so we're still giving it some better guts as a CPU.

Synthetic Benchmarks (3DMark and Heaven)

3DMark Fire Strike- 1080p

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3DMark Fire Strike Extreme- 1440p

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Heaven - 1080p

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Heaven - 1440p

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The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition definitely felt the strain of our synthetic benchmark run, with the 1080p run of 3DMark's Fire Strike resulting in a total score of 6706 versus the GTX 980 with 11,478 and the GTX 780 at 8768. But, this should be noted - the performance of the GTX 960 AMP! Edition isn't that far behind the GTX 780, which is impressive in its own right.

In Fire Strike Extreme, which is run at 2560x1440, the GTX 960 AMP! Edition begins closing the gap with the GTX 780. We have a total score of 3468 versus the 3784 on the GTX 780, while the GTX 980 sprints out into the lead with 5803. Fire Strike Ultra is where it's at in terms of synthetic benchmarks pulling our video cards to their knees, with the GTX 960 AMP! Edition managing a total score of 1167, while the GTX 780 pulls 1867 and the GTX 980 manages 3063.

When it comes to Unigine Heaven, the GTX 960 AMP! Edition performed well at 1080p, managing an average of 50FPS, while the GTX 780 pulled 66FPS and the GTX 980 always ahead with 88FPS. Nudging the resolution up to 2560x1440, the GTX 960 AMP! Edition managed 28FPS, while the GTX 780 and GTX 980 scored 44FPS and 55FPS respectively.

Heaven at 4K is really hard, but the GTX 960 AMP! Edition still managed to pull through with just 12FPS, while the GTX 780 scored 20FPS, and the winner is again, the GTX 980 with 23.6FPS.

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, running 1080p at Medium/Ultra and then 1440p at Medium/Ultra - but for the 1440p tests, we disabled AA as it is quite stressful on the GPU at that resolution. We're only doing this to give you a look at what BF4 performance is like on the GTX 960 AMP! Edition, and 1440p with 4x MSAA isn't an ideal way of doing that.

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And again, this time with the Ultra preset.

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GRID Autosport

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Metro: Last Light

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Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

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Thief

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Sniper Elite 3

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Tomb Raider

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BioShock Infinite

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DiRT Showdown

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Batman: Arkham Knight

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

Game Benchmarks (1440p)

Battlefield 4

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GRID Autosport

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Metro: Last Light

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Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

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Thief

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Tomb Raider

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BioShock Infinite

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DiRT Showdown

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Batman: Arkham Knight

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

Game Benchmarks (4K)

Battlefield 4

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GRID Autosport

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Metro: Last Light

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Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

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Thief

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Sniper Elite 3

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Tomb Raider

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BioShock Infinite

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DiRT Showdown

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Batman: Arkham Knight

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

Game Performance Summary

How We Judge Performance

Something I'm going to change from our old review style is I'm going to be choosing a segment of where this card will fall into for mainstream consumers. The people buying the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition, or any GTX 960 for that matter, will be playing at 1080p or below.

I've obviously benchmarked the ZOTAC GTX 960 AMP! Edition at 1440p and 4K, but those results will not be impacting my Final Thoughts on the card at all. Any and all judgment on this card is going to come from the 1080p benchmarking, its overclocking potential, features, software, noise, price and power consumption.

How does the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition stack up?

NVIDIA has crafted one of the most impressive GPUs of the last couple of years with the GeForce GTX 960, while ZOTAC has nudged it in the right direction. The two super-quiet and sometimes silent fans really help, while the single 6-pin PCIe power connector makes it an easy choice for the budget and power conscious gamer. For those with a smaller chassis, like an mITX build, this is going to be an easy choice.

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When it comes to performance, we're seeing some of our games reach 60FPS without a problem at 1080p, while some of them even scale that wall and make a run for 100FPS or more. There are a few games like Thief and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor that can't quite reach that 60FPS goal, but with a few details turned down, this will not be a problem.

The performance of the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition is something that is really courtesy of NVIDIA, while ZOTAC has slapped on a better cooling system, added in some cool overclocking software, and kept the single 6-pin PCIe power connector for super low power consumption and heat output.

Performance at 1080p

I walked into this review knowing that the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition would perform well, especially in my usual suite of benchmarks. It was only when I started playing around with Battlefield 4 that I began to realize the scope of what NVIDIA had here. A new GPU that uses less than 120W of power, and provides 1080p 60FPS performance in Battlefield 4... even on Ultra settings.

Battlefield 4 at 1080p on Medium settings provides 92.9FPS average, which is just great. I was playing it on my ASUS ROG Swift PG278Q monitor, with a native resolution of 2560x1440 and refresh rate of 144Hz with G-SYNC technology, and it was still amazing. Absolutely amazing. Cranking it up to Ultra though, and still enjoying a huge 69.8FPS average... well then. That's just an entire new thing to be excited about. Considering that at 1920x1080 the GeForce GTX 980 is pulling 108FPS and the GTX 780 is pulling 87FPS, this is quite an achievement for a card that consumes less power, makes next to no noise, and is quite small.

Even games like Metro: Last Light can be played with the Very High preset enabled, and enjoy over 50FPS. Gorgeous driving titles like GRID: Autosport seeing an insane 140.3FPS, edging out our GTX 980 by 0.2FPS... and the GTX 780 by 12FPS, this is a sight to behold, everyone. We achieved over 60FPS in every game except three: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Thief and Metro: Last Light. With some tweaks to their settings, you could easily enjoy 1080p and near maximum in-game graphic settings at 60FPS on a card that costs $209. Insane.

Performance at 1440p

I did state that I would not be judging the performance in my final pages of the review at 2560x1440, but that doens't mean we can't sit down and talk about it, does it? No. So let's do just that. Let's talk about how the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition performs at 1440p.

The first thing I tried to do was play Battlefield 4 at 2560x1440 with Ultra enabled, but it was pretty bad. The 128-bit memory bus and 2GB of VRAM were obviously limiting us, so I decided to tweak the in-game settings. I enabled the Ultra preset, but disabled the 4x MSAA for a custom profile, and the performance was much better. Not 60FPS better, but an average of 44FPS is something you can't complain about at this resolution, on a card for this price.

But, when I nudged it down to Medium to see if I could scale up to over 60FPS, that's when things got much, much better. We were able to achieve an average of 86.5FPS, at 1440p on the Medium preset, with a minimum of 61FPS. This is a stellar result for a game that looks this good, and again, on a card that retails for only $209. When you consider we were 'only' getting 92.9FPS on the Medium preset at 1080p, the performance at 1440p is actually damn impressive.

Again, games like GRID: Autosport with an average of 78FPS, or DiRT Showdown with 70FPS is just stellar. The additional pixels did start to restrain the GTX 960 AMP! Edition, but that's what we expected. Still, one of the most demanding games out there right now - Battlefield 4 - is totally playable at Medium settings, or even Ultra settings with a few tweaks at 2560x1440 for just $209.

Performance at 4K

Did you see those numbers on Battlefield 4? For $209, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition is pulling 86FPS average at 3840x2160 on Medium detail. Sure, it's not Ultra, but Medium detail in Battlefield 4 looks incredible still. Comparing this to the GeForce GTX 980 which pulls 128FPS, this is definitely something worth bragging about. Things are far different at Ultra though, where the GTX 960 AMP! Edition manages just 44FPS, which is still more than playable, while the GTX 980 pulls far out and ahead with 99FPS.

Every game except for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor can be played on the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition at 4K at 30FPS, with Shadow of Mordor managing 27FPS. I used a mix of Medium to Maximum (usually Ultra/Very High) in-game detail settings to maintain around 30FPS for our tests on the 4K resolution.

I didn't think the 128-bit memory bus would hold up, but I had to shake that old feeling as I explained in our GeForce GTX 960 architecture overview article. The memory bus isn't that important anymore when the architecture is so different to what it used to be years ago. It will be interesting to see what AMD will do with its HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) powered Radeon R9 300 series that's rumored to come out with a reported 4096-bit memory bus, that's for sure.

Overclocking

Overclocking - So Much Room For Activities!

One area of the GTX 960 that is going to be interesting is the potential it has to be overclocked. NVIDIA has really dialed things down on its reference design so that AIB partners can really play around with things. ZOTAC is using just a single 6-pin PCIe power connector, as well as some out-of-the-box overclocking of their own, so I don't expect much from the overclocking side of things.

We did push up another 100MHz on top of the overclock of the Base clock which seemed to be stable, but pushing the memory up another 40-50MHz resulted in instability. We're going to write up a follow up article next week looking at the overclocking of these GTX 960s, so keep your eye out for that.

The headroom on these cards is amazing, but ZOTAC is already taking advantage of Maxwell's architecture within the GTX 960 to squeeze an already impressive OC in the GTX 960 AMP! Edition.

Power Consumption and Sound Testing

Power Consumption

Power consumption is something that NVIDIA is getting very, very serious about and ZOTAC continues this following the reference GTX 960 specification very closely. This means we have the single 6-pin PCIe power connector, with a total TDP of 120W.

We ran two benchmarks at 1080p with maxed out details, BioShock Infinite and Metro: Last Light to measure the power consumption of our entire system, not just the GPU.

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As you can see, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition and our entire LGA 2011 system consumes a total of 235W in Metro: Last Light, compared to the 280W and 300W of the GTX 980, and GTX 780 respectively. BioShock Infinite is a bit better on the power consumption, with the GTX 960 AMP! Edition and the entire system only consuming 200W compared to the 240W and 290W of the GTX 980 and GTX 970, respectively.

Sound Testing

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

Software

ZOTAC has its own overclocking software known as 'Firestorm' which is a great looking utility that provides an easy-to-use way of getting the most out of your GeForce GPU. We used this software in conjunction with GPU-Z to overclock, and keep an eye on our card when pushing it to its limits. We will have a separate article that will arrive soon with our thoughts on overclocking, but for now we're going to give you a look at the Firestorm software in question.

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Here's the main screen that you're greeted with, where there's a very cool speedometer-like temperature monitor right in the middle. To the left, we have the GPU and Memory Clock, and to the right, we have some options for a Quick Boost to your GPU speeds, and some other profiles to play around with.

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If you click 'Advance', you're provided with a much more detailed set of options to play around with everything on your GPU from the Clock speeds to the Fan Speed and everything in between.

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A quick tease of the 'Quick Boost' option on the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition, which pushes up the clock speeds just a bit. We have squeezed much more out of it in further testing, so expect an OC article using the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition very soon.

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 960 AMP! Edition GPU.

What's Hot

It's Quiet, and Most of the Time, Even Silent: During all of my testing at various resolutions and loads, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition barely made a peep. Sitting here right now I'm running a benchmark as I write this, and its fans may be spinning, but they're not making any noise.

Unbeatable Price Point: At $209... well, holy hell it's good. At this price you're getting a card that is capable of smashing out 1080p at 60FPS in virtually every game on the market right now which is just incredible. Consoles, eat your hearts out (at 720p 30FPS).

1080p 60FPS Gaming Has Met its Match: ZOTAC has a card that can perform at 1920x1080 at nearly 60FPS in every game with the details cranked up. 1080p might not be enabled, but the 128-bit memory bus is going to start to feel the strain once you crank things like AA up. At 1080p, you're able to enjoy a near-silent GPU that can pump out 60FPS. Better yet, it's not priced anywhere near the level of the GTX 970 or Radeon R9 290.

4K at 30FPS Is No Problem: This is something I thought I wouldn't be saying, but the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition is capable of 4K at 30FPS... for $209. Wow.

Great Style: ZOTAC make some truly great looking cards, with the new GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition being no exception. If you want to show off your new GPU through your case window, you'll have all eyes on your system with this card.

Maxwell Architecture: As we detailed in our GeForce GTX 960 architecture overview article, NVIDIA has got some magic with its Maxwell architecture. We wouldn't be here today praising up the work of ZOTAC on this GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition if it weren't for the engineering efforts NVIDIA went to with Maxwell. Truly impressive stuff.

What's Not

Back Plate Gets Extremely Hot: This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's worth pointing out. The back plate on the GTX 960 AMP! Edition gets extremely hot, but this means it's doing its job - taking the heat away from other areas, that would normally get hotter. I'd rather have a hotter back plate, with cooler and quieter operation overall, than no back plate and additional heat needing to be worked off of the card.

Final Thoughts

This was my first GeForce GTX 960 off the ranks, with an MSI card coming up next, and an EVGA and ASUS on their way. ZOTAC has impressed me, with a card that features a great cooling setup with its dual fan cooling system and FREEZE technology. During 90% or more of my time with the AMP! Edition, it didn't make a peep.

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This is hard to say about most other cards, especially since the last system I was playing with featured two GIGABYTE Radeon R9 290X WindForce GPUs in Crossfire, which made a huge amount of noise when they were under full load.

ZOTAC includes their easy-to-use and very functional FireStorm software so that you can squeeze every single last drop of performance out of the GTX 960 AMP! Edition, which has some incredible headroom in it considering its low power footprint. ZOTAC has already overclocked it by a decent margin out of the box, and even if you leave it, you can see that from our benchmarks, you're getting close to 60FPS at 1080p most of the time which is great.

Even when things are turned up to 2560x1440, or 1440p, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition was still taking swings at performance. The AMP! Edition, with our stock Core i7-5820K and stock clocks on the factory overclocked AMP! Edition card was capable of around 30-40FPS at 1440p. This is more than playable, and considering the price, this is a great achievement.

Hats tipped to NVIDIA who are continuing the domination of the GPU market with their Maxwell architecture, which has now hit the mid-range market. ZOTAC, on the other hand, has taken the reference design of the GTX 960 and spun its own story with the AMP! Edition. This is a card you can be proud of buying, and surprised with just how great the bang for buck is with it.

PRICING: You can find the Zotac GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition 2GB 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 960 AMP! Edition 2GB retails for $229.00 at Amazon.