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Zotac 8800 GT AMP hits 700MHz

by on03 December 2007
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Review: One of the fastest 8800 GT's on the market

 

Magazines and e-zines are simply swamped with 8800 GT news and reviews, but you're really lucky if you actually manage to get your hands on an 8800 GT. The manufacturing costs of the small Small 65nm chip are low, hence the price is great, and same goes for performance. Today, we’re about to look at one of the fastest 8800 GT models on the market, and that is Zotac's 8800 GT AMP card.

Although this card runs at 700MHz, which is 100MHz more than reference speeds, Zotac AMP price is just a tad higher. For a measly $20 more you get a great AMP card. Current 8800 GT prices are higher due to enormous demand, but that should change later on. Zotac also offers a somewhat slower card running at 660MHz, but the trick is that its price is identical to that of Nvidia’s reference 8800 GT. The sad thing is that we would sincerely recommend these cards, if only they found their way to the retail stores. In the meantime, let’s see why Zotac named this card 8800 GT AMP Edition.

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Zotac 8800 GT AMP is significantly faster than reference cards. The core runs at 700MHz, which is 100MHz more than reference, and the memory at 1000MHz (effective 2000MHz), which is also a 100MHz increase. Zotac was the first company that dared to soar to these heights, and we’ve already seen that only Gainward did better; theirs was dual-slot 8800 GT GLH but only the memory was faster, and only by 25MHz.

AMP card’s Shaders run at 1700MHz, which is faster than reference by 200MHz. The card has 112 Stream processors, and they are optimized much better than on the G80 generation; that is one of the reasons why this card has done so well.

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GDDR3 memory came from Qimonda and its designation is HYB18H5123221BF-10, which means that memory is running at 1000MHz. The G92 core is surrounded by 8 memory chips that pack 512MB of memory in total. This card supports SLI, but you will need two cards for that, of course.

The cooler is based on Nvidia’s reference cooler design, but Zotac opted for a bigger fan. From the outside it's rather hard to tell it apart from the reference one, and you might think that no significant changes were made, but the interior begs to differ. Copper heat pipes that transfer the heat from the core are stacked differently, the aluminum fins are packed more closely together and there are more of them. Still, the cooler width stayed the same.

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On the pictures above you see Nvidia’s cooler found on almost all the 8800 GT’s. Even XFX uses a reference cooler, and if you want to see the difference you can compare it to the picture below. The aluminum fins are tighter, and the copper pipes layout is different. The fan is not significantly bigger, we’re talking about less than a centimeter more in diameter.

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The picture on the cooler is not just a sticker, but rather a real print, and that makes this card even more attractive. Zotac’s cooler is quiet and it outperforms reference coolers by a couple of degrees Celsius.

Power connectors are standard, one PCI-E 6 pin connector. Zotac made a little indent on the cooler lid to make it easier to connect the power.

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8800 GT packs much better HD capabilities than the current 8800 generation based on G80 chip. The 8800 GT core can easily handle VC-1 or H.264 decoding, and display output logics is on the chip, rather than outside like we've seen on 8800 GTX cards.

HDMI + Audio are not a part of Nvidia’s reference design, but we’re hoping that some partners, maybe even Zotac, will manufacture a card with full HDMI support. We tried the DVI-to-HDMI dongle and had no trouble with the picture on our HDTV TV, but there’s no sound. The card has two DVI outs, and you can connect CRT monitors using a DVI-to-VGA dongle included in the box.

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The box is on fire, just like the card in it. The rear part of the box has a cutout plastic window that lets you take a peek inside and see how the card looks.

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We tested the Zotac AMP on our standard test rig and we compared it to a couple of interesting cards. 8800 GTS with 128 Stream processors is still not available, but it’s definitely going to be faster than reference 8800 GT card. We’ll see whether Zotac 8800 GT AMP will be able to compete with the new card that we’re expecting next week.

Testbed
 
Motherboard:
EVGA 680i SLI (Supplied by EVGA)

Processor:
Intel Core 2 Duo 6800 Extreme edition (Supplied by Intel)

Memory:

OCZ FlexXLC PC2 9200 5-5-5-18  (Supplied by OCZ)
        while testing CL5-5-5-15-CR2T 1066MHz at 2.2V

PSU:
OCZ Silencer 750 Quad Black ( Supplied by OCZ)

Hard disk:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 80GB SATA (Supplied by Seagate)

 

CPU-Cooler:
Freezer 7 Pro (Supplied by Artic Cooling)
 

Case Fans:
Artic Cooling - Artic Fan 12 PWM
Artic Cooling - Artic Fan 8 PWM


3DMarks

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3D Marks report Zotac 8800 GT AMP to be the best card. At default settings it leaves Geforce 8800 GTX in the dust. The scenario is the same in gaming because 8800 GT cards perform great at lower resolutions and default settings.

As long as you’re not gaming at ultra-high resolutions, there’s no real need for buying 8800 GTX cards – 8800 GT will prove to be more than enough. Zotac AMP is an overclocked 8800 GT card running at 700MHz core and 2000MHz memory, and the Shader speed is 1700MHz. This, more or less, shows you what you should expect from this card.

Gaming

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1024x768 and 1280x1024 are reserved for the 8800 GT AMP Edition. The card outperforms the reference card by 11%, and it even beats 8800 GTX. At 1600x1200 and antialiasing on, AMP beats reference 8800 GT by 13%, and the score is similar at 2048x1536. At this resolution 8800 GTX beats Zotac 8800 GT AMP by 5 frames, and reference 8800 GT by 13 frames.

As we’ve already said, 8800 GT is great for standard gaming resolutions. However, in some games the drivers don’t perform very well, so no matter what game you choose, turning antialiasing on will result in a lousy frame rate. Crysis is a typical example – gaming is great, but steer clear of high detail settings on high resolutions.

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In Crysis, the cards score somewhat evenly, but at 1024x768, Zotac 8800 GT AMP proudly takes the throne.

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World in Conflict is just as graphics-hungry as Crysis is. Higher resolutions with antialiasing on are smoother on 8800 GTX, but at lower resolutions the difference is almost nonexistent. In this game, Zotac 8800 GT AMP shows no significant advantage over the reference design card.

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In F.E.A.R., 8800 GT AMP shines yet again, and it significantly outperforms the reference cards. We see a performance advantage of up to 18%. 8800 GTX leads the way, but 8800 GT AMP is the closest to these results. At 1600x1200, 8800 GTX beats 8800 GT AMP by 21%, and reference 8800 GT by 37%.

Temperatures

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Although reference cards run at a lower speed, temperatures on Zotac 8800 GT AMP are cooler by a couple of degrees Celsius. We marked the cards as “silent” because we set cooling to AUTO, and the fans were quiet at all times. Maximum fan speed made some noise, but it cooled the card to 60-65 degrees Celsius, which is much better than the results in the above table. It is probably best to set the fan speed manually, and find an optimum compromise between the noise and the cooling effectiveness.

Conclusion

Zotac did a great overclocking job with the 8800 GT AMP. The best part of this offer is the price, and it shouldn’t be much higher than the reference cards, but due to severe unavailability of these cards, the prices are indeed too steep.

The card is overclocked from default 600MHz to 700MHz and this is the first card to reach these core speeds. Other partners have only recently showcased their overclocked cards, but it’s unlikely that you will find a faster card. Memory is clocked at 2000MHz and Shader processors at 1700MHz.

In order to improve the cooling Zotac altered the reference cooler design and opted for a tad bigger fan, which didn’t affect the size. The card is quiet and a bit cooler than the reference one, although the speeds are significantly overclocked.

There are no games in the box, although some partners consider this to be a must, but on the other hand the price is just a tad higher than reference cards.

Finally, this is a great product for a great price, and it proudly earns Fudzilla's Recommended award.

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Last modified on 04 December 2007
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