Hello and thanks for reading.
I feel a little foolish. I was shopping for a new gaming PC build and decided to upgrade from a GTX 1080 to 1080ti at the last minute, did some quick research and ordered the Zotac 1080ti AMP Extreme Core edition via Amazon.
From what I can tell, nothing wrong with the card (generally, not my actual one, which has yet to be tested), but I only realized after I received it yesterday that the Core edition is actually a bit worse than the regular Extreme edition. Adding a word typically means something is better than the version without the added word, so confusing and perhaps a bit deceptive on Zotac's part, but it's my own fault.
Now, both cards are pretty top of the class and very close to each other (about 2% difference) in terms of their promised base and boost clocks. But the general consensus is that the Extreme-only cards (again, 2% higher clocks than the "Core") represent the best chips of Zotac's stock while chips that don't quite manage Extreme-only performance levels become "Extreme Core."
If boosting, therefore, take the cards as high as they'll go within temperature parameters, this means that the Extreme-only chips may have a fair amount of headroom if you happen to win the chip lottery, whereas Extreme Core chips will almost certainly have very little (or they'd be Extreme-only chips).
And there's no price difference right now between the Extreme and Extreme Core cards.
Bottom line [TL;DR]: I'm not planning to OC in any way beyond the factory OC and boost. I want to test my card to see if it's functioning well at this level during the 30-day Amazon return period. If it is, I'll keep it as a solid, if not absolute top-performing card. But if it runs too hot, artifacts, has coil whine or runs too loud, I'll return it for the Extreme-only version or something else.
Any advice on the best way to test the card and monitor its performance (MSI Afterburner perhaps or something else?) would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
I feel a little foolish. I was shopping for a new gaming PC build and decided to upgrade from a GTX 1080 to 1080ti at the last minute, did some quick research and ordered the Zotac 1080ti AMP Extreme Core edition via Amazon.
From what I can tell, nothing wrong with the card (generally, not my actual one, which has yet to be tested), but I only realized after I received it yesterday that the Core edition is actually a bit worse than the regular Extreme edition. Adding a word typically means something is better than the version without the added word, so confusing and perhaps a bit deceptive on Zotac's part, but it's my own fault.
Now, both cards are pretty top of the class and very close to each other (about 2% difference) in terms of their promised base and boost clocks. But the general consensus is that the Extreme-only cards (again, 2% higher clocks than the "Core") represent the best chips of Zotac's stock while chips that don't quite manage Extreme-only performance levels become "Extreme Core."
If boosting, therefore, take the cards as high as they'll go within temperature parameters, this means that the Extreme-only chips may have a fair amount of headroom if you happen to win the chip lottery, whereas Extreme Core chips will almost certainly have very little (or they'd be Extreme-only chips).
And there's no price difference right now between the Extreme and Extreme Core cards.
Bottom line [TL;DR]: I'm not planning to OC in any way beyond the factory OC and boost. I want to test my card to see if it's functioning well at this level during the 30-day Amazon return period. If it is, I'll keep it as a solid, if not absolute top-performing card. But if it runs too hot, artifacts, has coil whine or runs too loud, I'll return it for the Extreme-only version or something else.
Any advice on the best way to test the card and monitor its performance (MSI Afterburner perhaps or something else?) would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!