Zotac GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition Review

[Guest]

Zotac’s GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition sure looks good, thanks to its sleek metal shroud and dual fan design, but does it perform as good as it looks?

Zotac GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition Review : Read more

 

[Rattenmann]

Why did you not inlcude a benchmark comparing the three cards at stock and max overclock? That would actually be the most interesting part about this review / test.

/sadface

 

[NinjaNerd56]

I have the EVGA SSC card, and it's a solid card.

I use Afterburner with an anal retentive fan profile, so my card has never exceeded 56C. Unless I'm playing a game, the fans are idle...I have a slew of case fans installed.

Performance is very good to amazing considering the 128bit handcuffs, and overall my rig is quieter, cooler, and uses less juice than my 'old' 650Ti board.

 

[Larry Litmanen]

Zotac does good stuff. My old rig came with a Zotac 9800 GT. To date still going strong in my brother's rig (he doesn't game).

 

[atheus]

Like Rattenmann, I'm a little puzzled that you compared the card against competing cards in power draw and related issues, but then stopped the comparisons there. Seems like an article that got published about half finished. Could it be that we are "looking at one of the better GeForce GTX 960s out there"? After reading this article, I still have no idea.

 

[Blueberries]

People are asking for overclocked comparisons when the card can't run 1080p without underclocking itself?

Maybe they should have considered more than two heat pipes. This card is a joke considering other people are selling a much better product for the same price.

 

[atheus]

People are asking for overclocked comparisons when the card can't run 1080p without underclocking itself?

Maybe they should have considered more than two heat pipes. This card is a joke considering other people are selling a much better product for the same price.

That's sort of what I take away from the little info that is here. It seems like the article is very positive about all these rather suspicious results, though. It leaves me wondering if there is some sort of bias going on, and if that's the reason it isn't being tested at its best against the other cards at their best. Well, not so much wondering as that is exactly what I wind up concluding.

 

[Blueberries]

People are asking for overclocked comparisons when the card can't run 1080p without underclocking itself?

Maybe they should have considered more than two heat pipes. This card is a joke considering other people are selling a much better product for the same price.

That's sort of what I take away from the little info that is here. It seems like the article is very positive about all these rather suspicious results, though. It leaves me wondering if there is some sort of bias going on, and if that's the reason it isn't being tested at its best against the other cards at their best. Well, not so much wondering as that is exactly what I wind up concluding.

Why bother with benchmarks and graphs and equipment and testing and swapping this and that and... the preliminary results tell the whole story to me.

 

[dcunited]

Perhaps I can add to the discussion here. The smaller size makes this an excellent buy for those with smaller, noncustomizable mid towers. A lot of these cases comfortably house one fan models but can squeeze in a 8-9 inches.

TLDR: this model is more powerful than comparable single fan models for those concerned with size.

 

[atheus]

Perhaps I can add to the discussion here. The smaller size makes this an excellent buy for those with smaller, noncustomizable mid towers. A lot of these cases comfortably house one fan models but can squeeze in a 8-9 inches.

TLDR: this model is more powerful than comparable single fan models for those concerned with size.

I see. This may be a good angle, but although the Zotac's size was discussed in the article, this is not the angle the article has taken. The opening paragraph states "we could be looking at one of the better GeForce GTX 960s out there", and the card is compared against two variants with coolers that mop the floor with this Zotac's cooler. The analysis and the data do not match up. What you say may be true, but you would have to read some other article to know it.

Why bother with benchmarks and graphs and equipment and testing and swapping this and that and... the preliminary results tell the whole story to me.

Well, I can see that this card's cooler isn't all that great, but the author is hypothesizing they may have hand-picked GPU's for these cards. I would think floating this kind of statement should justify some comparisons beyond how the power and cooling stack up. Besides, although it is clear that it will run hot as hell I don't see clear evidence that this will cause throttling, or how its performance will pan out against other cards running 25 degrees cooler.

I guess the main complaint though is this general super-positive review with a bunch of very unimpressive data, and a bunch of other data with no context so I can't really tell if it's good or bad.

 

[Calculatron]

Interesting review!

I'm surprised no reviewing sites have done a GTX 960 4gb SLI benchmark, yet, however.

 

[tsnor]

"...The limitation of a single six-pin auxiliary connector becomes apparent by maxing out at 124W. .... " huh ?

Typically the connector will pull the power it needs, potentially exceeding the current per connector design point. There isn't typically a 'too many amps for a single 6 pin' throttle.

The 124w max power might be the GPU, which is up against power and cooling constraints, start to throttle which in turn cuts down the power consumed.

For example, "...The problem is that today's video cards are bound strictly by Thermal Design Power specifications, or TDP. Both NVIDIA and AMD lay strict guidelines on the GPUs ability to draw power. If the video card reaches this thermal design cap, the clock speed and voltages will start clock throttling to keep the power usage in check....." http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/02/02/msi_geforce_gtx_960_gaming_overclocking_review/2#.VTV-ZCFVhBc

 

[somebodyspecial]

"Normally we would compare our results against a reference GeForce GTX 960. But like the 970, Nvidia didn't create one. As such, we're dropping the frequencies of this board down to Nvidia's reference clock rates. And we're comparing it to offerings from Asus and EVGA as well."

I just stopped reading I wish they'd all stop giving you cards for review. Neutering cards so they don't act like SHIPPED should be illegal.

 

[somebodyspecial]

Why not compare the card to others? It is so hard to throw it into the same chart from the original 960 article to save people from jumping around trying to see this data? At least you didn't lower the clocks in case (but complain about not being able to get a ref card anyway...LOL). Basically the data from the two articles need to be merged etc. Just firestrike? Run the tests you ran in the original and throw the results into the other article's charts or repeat them here. Maybe I'm just getting lazy.

 

[kcarbotte]

Why did you not inlcude a benchmark comparing the three cards at stock and max overclock? That would actually be the most interesting part about this review / test.

/sadface

That is a good point. I will definitely keep that in mind for the future.

"Normally we would compare our results against a reference GeForce GTX 960. But like the 970, Nvidia didn't create one. As such, we're dropping the frequencies of this board down to Nvidia's reference clock rates. And we're comparing it to offerings from Asus and EVGA as well."

I just stopped reading I wish they'd all stop giving you cards for review. Neutering cards so they don't act like SHIPPED should be illegal.

I'm sorry you felt that way. The card was tested at shipped speeds as well. The reason it was down clocked is to compare what Nvidia had intended as the reference spec against what AIB partners chose to ship.
There is nothing wrong with factory overclocked cards.

That's sort of what I take away from the little info that is here. It seems like the article is very positive about all these rather suspicious results, though. It leaves me wondering if there is some sort of bias going on, and if that's the reason it isn't being tested at its best against the other cards at their best. Well, not so much wondering as that is exactly what I wind up concluding.

No bias at all. The article opened up by stating this may be one of the better cards. The results showed otherwise and the conclusion reflected that.
The opening of the review is never meant to allude to any one side. On paper it seemed very compelling. simple as that.



Thank you all for the feedback. I will certainly be taking it into account in future reviews.

 

[McDuncun]

Interesting review!

I'm surprised no reviewing sites have done a GTX 960 4gb SLI benchmark, yet, however.

Interesting review!

I'm surprised no reviewing sites have done a GTX 960 4gb SLI benchmark, yet, however.

Hahahahahaha

 

[rwinches]

I agree EVGA FTW 960 4GB GDDR5 SLI three 1080p monitors gaming performance. OK it could be the Super SC.
That is what we want to see.
I am ready to get a new card one now then add one later I have the system except for the VGA I'd like to get it up and tested before the warranties expire.
The R9 280 or 280X are nice but draw a lot of juice in Crossfire. R9 290 or GTX 970 yeah if I was going there, I would wait for the R9 3XX.

When the GTX 960 first came out there were so many comments here about only 2GB.

I for one would never expect any 960 to be great at 4K except for movies.

Can we get a review that tries to get the most out of a card in stead of finding way to show shortcomings.

Yeah and throwing in results from cards that cost double or triple distracts and skews all the charts and graphs.

Many are never going to purchase a $500-600 card or $300-1000+ CPU and are fine with that, so the inclusion of their stats adds nothing when real world priced components are reviewed.

Thanks

 

[stoned_ritual]

Why no mention of fan speeds?

 

[BobRoberts363]

Why didn't you rate this compared to any of the 700 series say like the 760??? I mean this is a total waste of time the whole 900 series as far as I'm concerned is a joke. For all that extra money it hardly justifies the little bit of performance gain over the already 780ti. I'll wanted to do a new build now on intel but I can't see pumping out extra for so little on this series GPU. I run two 760's sli and they rock together and both are under a year old. I think the only comparison I seen you do with this card is with the 750 or the 600 series Why is that???????? sheesh big let down when I was waiting for a real boost in the next series and all I see is all talk with out the walk.

 

[ElectroMagneto]

For $199 its a pretty good value when you consider Nvidia is selling Gt740 for $99 which is only a third as powerful . But then R9 290 at 250 is a better value.