• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Talk me down from the ledge- Zotac 980 ti amp extreme

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.
ATMINSIDE said:
That's what I was saying earlier, it doesn't matter what PCB you get for ambient.
The benefit of the Hybrid cooler is that it's quieter than an air cooler and 30-35°C cooler.

Again, anyone that's pushing the Classified cards hard enough to benefit from it won't be on ambient.
Whether they put an air cooler or a Hybrid cooler on it, it would get taken off for a GPU pot.
So many people buy those cards, run them at stock, and absolutely waste their money.
Click to expand...

i'm not completely against a stock pcb as long as i can get that magic 1500mhz or so with good enough cooling to prevent throttling and no coil whine for 700 bucks or less. i may need to do more homework but it seems like only the beefed up cards are getting that high most of the time and people with regular sc+ or vanilla cards are getting about 1350 give or take. i'll look again.
 
Brando said:
i'm not completely against a stock pcb as long as i can get that magic 1500mhz or so with good enough cooling to prevent throttling and no coil whine for 700 bucks or less. i may need to do more homework but it seems like only the beefed up cards are getting that high most of the time and people with regular sc+ or vanilla cards are getting about 1350 give or take. i'll look again.
Click to expand...

That's silicon lottery, not the PCB.
The only way an upgraded PCB will help is if that card is binned.

Good luck, but it's going to be a long shot to get a 1500MHz 980Ti for daily use.
Most are hitting full boost just under 1400MHz regardless of MFR without heavy BIOS mods and potentially unsafe voltages for the card's life.
 
ATMINSIDE said:
That's silicon lottery, not the PCB.
The only way an upgraded PCB will help is if that card is binned.

Good luck, but it's going to be a long shot to get a 1500MHz 980Ti for daily use.
Most are hitting full boost just under 1400MHz regardless of MFR without heavy BIOS mods and potentially unsafe voltages for the card's life.
Click to expand...

i won't cry over 1400 that's still amazingly fast. lifetime warranty is awesome.
 
Here's what Joe hit on the MSI Gaming version, it's a pretty good non-reference PCB:
ptl3dfsrs.jpg
 
ATMINSIDE said:
I'm always watching the GPUz number, as max boost clocks under stress vary.
Click to expand...

is that what people are doing? i just go by what it actually runs at during maximum stress. whatever fraps says after 5 minutes of heaven = the real speed (imo)
 
All depends what card you have and how BIOS is balancing clocks. A lot depends from ASIC as basing on that value, clocks are going higher or lower in boost state.
You can edit BIOS to make it work in totally different way. For example I made my GTX960 to run at ~1350MHz but max boost after overvoltage is passing 1700MHz. Card is balancing between 1600 and 1720MHz depends from temps and power requirements ( it's 1x 6 pin card so it has its limits even after modded rails ).
So you can make boost clock stable when you deliver enough power, keep gpu cold enough and disable all limits from BIOS ( and drivers ). Not so easy as it sounds.
 
ATMINSIDE said:
I'm always watching the GPUz number, as max boost clocks under stress vary.
Click to expand...
The numbers I report are actual, stable boost clocks... If you go by GPUz, you are sharing nearly 100Mhz less than what it actually could be. That number is the MINIMUM boost.

is that what people are doing? i just go by what it actually runs at during maximum stress. whatever fraps says after 5 minutes of heaven = the real speed (imo)
Click to expand...
You simply need to go into GPUz or MSI AB or something that graphs and look at the max boost speed. If you are at the limit of temp/power/etc, then that value will go up and down a bit... and its OK. If it is constantly up and down, you need to lower voltage and or clocks or raise the power limit.
 
Last edited:
ok i think you're wearing me down. i may just get the regular amp. the extra 40 bucks doesn't seem to get you much with the amp extreme. the temps aren't really better and i might get 50 more mhz or something. who cares. the regular amp looks better too. i just want dat lifetime warranty and i can turn the fan down a little bit while still getting acceptable temps. this is agonizing. i'm almost finished with bloodborne and can't handle boredom. first world problems
 
EarthDog said:
It really isn't this hard... :)
Click to expand...

it's the price. this is the third most expensive thing i will have bought after my car and my speakers. buyers remorse sucks in proportion to amount paid times disappointment.
 
I bet buying a car had to take you years... :p

I hear you, but you really are splitting hairs my friend. As I said earlier, buy the cheaper one and clock it to the higher one. All these granular details you are hung up on really isn't going to make a difference for how you are using the card.
 
Completely agreed with EarthDog, the only difference is the stock clocks, past that is just hoping that you get lucky in the silicon lottery to clock high.
 
i don't even like games. i just like researching video cards.
 
then buy couple of low end graphics , will last for longer, it will be cheaper and is much more fun :)
 
If you don't game and just wanted to discuss a card, that should have been stated at the beginning. That way several of us don't waste our time trying to convince you one way or the other for no reason.
 
i'm just kidding of course i like games. just making fun of myself a little. it's crazy how long it's taking for all these cards to come out. availability is weird. i heard newegg had the strix a minute and then took it back down. no idea what's going on with it. but where i'm at on the zotac is up in the air. i read some feedback on it and more people are saying it has coil whine. then there's the thing about being louder than stock. some reviewers show it louder than stock and others say they can't hear it at all. it's like there are different versions out there or something. i had written off the regular amp at first because i read that it doesn't have fan shutoff, then i find out it does. too much disinformation to be sure so i'm just waiting for a few more actual people on the forum to share their experiences with the different cards. here's my general impressions of what i've read all over the place

gigabyte g1- best performance but bad quality control and good chance of coil whine
msi-reviews show it being amazing but real people on some forums showing high temps on load with fans at max. warranty becomes "limited" after 2 years
sc+ worst temps of all aftermarket coolers and vanilla pcb. awesome warranty if something goes wrong
strix- great in every way but asus is shady about rma and the cooling is a big question mark until real people get them
amp- great cooling, average oc, lifetime warranty, louder than stock? quiet as a mouse?
amp extreme- best guaranteed clock speed, lifetime warranty, gigantic, multiple reports of bad coil whine like the g1 recently, louder than stock or super quiet?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back