Metro: Last Light
Metro Last Light sucks the living memory bandwidth out of any video card. Given the benchmark’s tough details, the ZOTAC GTX 960 AMP! performed admirably, again, coming close to matching the GIGABYTE GTX 770 OC.
Crysis 3
Here, we see that the ZOTAC GTX 960 AMP! performs relatively well given its lesser memory bandwidth. Keep in mind it’s a 128-bit card versus the slower frequency GTX 770 which has a 256-bit interface. Sometimes, that helps especially with larger, and more detailed, titles. It also helps in applications that can use the memory bandwidth like professional video editing software.
Far Cry 4
The ZOTAC GTX 960 AMP! does a bit better this round. Far Cry 4 isn’t quite as hungry as other games but it is taxing in some respects. Again, you can see how close the GIGABYTE GTX 770 OC is in this capacity.
Battlefield 4
Picking up a title from EA’s stable, we see that the ZOTAC GTX 960 AMP! isn’t so well optimized for this title, now coming in a hair above the older GTX 680, but with a further margin from the GTX 770 OC. Based on EA’s inherent lack of updates and bugginess throughout the life of this title, we’ll take the results with a grain of salt. However, it’s worth noting we do get playable frame rates from the GTX 960 at the highest settings.
Final Thoughts
The ZOTAC GTX 960 AMP! edition is both an affordable and fast card in most respects. Factory overclocked settings do make a difference in producing slightly higher frame rates. The card was stable throughout, barely pulling the specified 120 Watt consumption. But in that is the card’s hidden worth. It performs very closely with some of the more expensive cards of the past, which had more memory and bandwidth. We would like to see a 4GB version come in soon as many games are starting to push into 4K territory.
A minor sore spot was some EMF card noise, mostly noticeable when overclocked and under full load. Otherwise, it was minimal during regular gaming. It wouldn’t take much for ZOTAC engineers to remedy this. Plus, it would properly compliment their FREEZE technology feature, which boasts silence. Perhaps a firmware update can help it out.
The ZOTAC GTX 960 AMP! Edition video card is an affordable $209.99 USD. Besides the announced (but not shipping till March 1st, 2015) ASUS Strix GTX 960, it’s the highest overclocked “shipping” card we’ve found. With a $10 difference separating it and its less expensive (and slightly lower clocked sibling), the AMP! Edition is the one to have. Definitely recommended!
Pros
- High factory overclocked frequencies
- Excellent overclocking performance gains
- No fan noise at idle and little at full load
- Attractive card and GPU cooler
- Most affordable factory overclocked card shipping today
- 1080p friendly gaming
Cons
- Some EMF noise under maximum load
Overall Rating: 9.0Â / 10.0
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