We knew a slew of Nvidia's board partners would be revealing their GeForce RTX 2080 offerings soon after the RTX 20-series launch.
(We previewed the initial wave of GeForce RTX cards here.) Zotac's Gaming GeForce RTX 2080 Amp is one of the first graphics cards in the bunch we're testing.
The company's top-tier RTX 2080 offering, it has all the glitz and glam of a flagship aftermarket card: aggressive factory overclocking, LED bling, and a massive heatsink with three fans for overclocking headroom.
It's $839, or $40 more than the $799 Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Founders Edition.
(That article is a must-read if you need an introduction to the RTX 20 series and the new technologies it brings to the table.) We found the gigantic Amp a reasonable alternative to Nvidia's pace-setter, especially if you take advantage of its beefed-up cooling system to overclock it even further.
Amp It Up!
The GeForce RTX 2080 in Amp guise is Zotac's most fully featured and expensive RTX 2080-based graphics card.
Zotac also has two other non-Amp GeForce RTX 2080-based models available: the RTX 2080 Blower and the RTX 2080 Twin Fan.
(The company also plans Amp Extreme and Amp Extreme Core tri-fan models, and an Amp Maxx dual-fan card, but I haven't seen any of these on sale in the United States as of this writing.)
The RTX 2080 Blower model is aptly named, as it uses a blower-style cooler with straight-through airflow, like the Founders Edition cards in Nvidia's 10 series.
It's ideal for closed-in desktop builds and confining cases where you can't afford to have heat exhausting into the chassis.
It's not factory-overclocked, rated for the same 1,710MHz boost clock as Nvidia's GeForce RTX 2080 reference-card specifications.
The RTX 2080 Blower goes for about $770 street, or $70 more than Nvidia's quoted reference-card price.
At this writing, all RTX 2080s I found for sale were higher than Nvidia's quoted $699 reference-card price; this phenomenon isn't unique to Zotac.
(Also note that, as explained in our RTX 2080 Founders Edition review, the Founders Edition cards are premium-priced versus what Nvidia defines as baseline RTX cards; Nvidia is not positioning the Founders cards, which are overclocked by a small measure, as its reference boards.)
One up from the RTX 2080 Blower model is Zotac's RTX 2080 Twin Fan, which I didn't find for sale as I wrote this.
It uses two 90mm fans over a large heatsink to keep cool.
Its 1,770MHz on the boost clock is a slight uptick over the RTX 2080 reference spec.
The dual-fan design is similar to the cooling setup on the Nvidia Founders Edition card.
Most of the exhaust air will go into the case, not out the back, so you'll need to be sure you allow for airflow around the card.
Both the Zotac RTX 2080 Blower and RTX 2080 Twin Fan are standard-size dual-slot cards, about the same size as the RTX 2080 Founders Edition.
The RTX 2080 Amp, though, breaks the size rules.
This card is 12.1 inches long and 2.3 inches thick, taking up two-and-a-half PCI Express slot positions.
It is almost 2 inches longer than the other Zotac cards.
Be sure to check the maximum GPU length of your case before buying this monster, or you might need a new case, too.
The card's huge heatsink is there to handle the 1,830MHz factory overclock on the boost clock, a 120MHz or 7 percent increase over the RTX 2080 reference-spec boost clock.
I've seen RTX 2080 offerings from other board partners, such as Asus, with higher factory overclocks, but Zotac's Amp edition isn't far off.
That's One Massive Heatsink
Let's have a look around the card...
The heatpipes and aluminum heatsink fins are clearly visible through the 90mm fans.
Two fan controllers allow the fans to operate independently, varying their spin rate according to the cooling needs of a particular section of the card.
A die-cast metal covering on the underside acts as a heatsink to improve cooling.
Zotac's dark gray branding over here is hard to make out unless you have bright case lighting.
The "GEFORCE RTX" lettering is static on the card's outward-facing side, but the Zotac Gaming logo in the middle is LED-backlit.
The logo is user-changeable among eight colors and multiple patterns, and you switch it within the Zotac FireStorm software.
This is the extent of the lighting on this card, so it's hardly much of a selling point, in my view.
It's not nearly as elaborate as the lighting systems on some of Zotac's past models, such as the GTX 1080 Ti Amp Extreme Core Edition, which had three lighting zones.
Moving on, the NVLink SLI connector is visible toward the backplate.
If you plan to SLI-connect a pair of these cards, ensure you have a three-slot space between your PCI Express x16 slots to accommodate these cards' extra thickness.
Nearer the opposite end, you can see the six-pin and eight-pin power-supply connectors.
The backplate of the RTX 2080 Amp has the same port layout and selection as the RTX 2080 Founders Edition.
You get three DisplayPort 1.4 connectors, an HDMI 2.0 connector, and a VirtualLink (USB Type-C) port.
The latter is a future-looking connector for next-generation virtual-reality headsets that haven't yet to come to market.
It offers power, video, and data over a single cable, which should simplify the headset-installation experience.
And so...on to the benchmarks.
PC Labs tested this card using a variety of synthetic benchmarks and the latest AAA game titles.
As this review is on the heels of the RTX 20 series launch, no Nvidia ray-tracing or DLSS-enabled games were available for formal testing.
Our test rig includes Intel's fastest mainstream CPU, the Core i7-8700K, 16GB of G.Skill DDR4 memory, and a solid-state boot drive.
It's all connected via an Aorus Z370 Gaming 7 motherboard.
You'll see the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition($2,429.00 at Amazon) make an appearance in the benchmarking results.
The GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition is also there, a fierce competitor to the RTX 2080 given its similar pricing.
The RTX 2080 is designed for 4K gaming, so that will be the focus.
The following is a benchmark-by-benchmark analysis of our testing.
You can skip down to the conclusion if you want the "TLDR" version.
Synthetic Benchmarks
3DMark Fire Strike Ultra
Synthetic benchmarks can be good predictors of real-world gaming performance.
Futuremark's circa-2013 Fire Strike Ultra is still a go-to for 4K-based gaming.
We're looking only at the graphics subscore, not the overall score.
To say that the RTX 2080 models in this comparison are close performers is an understatement.
Less than 1 percent separates the Zotac RTX 2080 Amp and the Nvidia RTX 2080 Founders Edition, something I expected since they have similar factory overclocks.
Both are on par with the "Pascal"-based Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition.
3DMark Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme
The Time Spy pair is Futuremark's DirectX 12-enabled benchmark set for predicting the performance of DirectX 12-enabled games.
It uses major features of the API, including asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter, and multi-threading.
Time Spy shows a slightly larger difference between the Zotac RTX 2080 Amp and the Nvidia RTX 2080 Founders Edition, but it's hardly worth a mention, as it's within the margin of error.
Unigine Superposition
Our last synthetic benchmark is Unigine's latest graphics-testing release, Superposition, another DirectX 12-minded benchmark.
This benchmark does incorporate ray tracing, but it's done in software, not hardware, and thus doesn't utilize the RTX 2080 FE's RT cores.
The numbers between the Zotac RTX 2080 Amp and the Nvidia GTX 2080 Founders Edition are the same, which isn't a surprise.
Shall we move on to some real games now?
Real-World Gaming
The following benchmarks are games that you can play.
The charts themselves will list the settings we used (typically the highest in-game presets and, if available, DirectX 12).
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Square Enix's recent title is our first real-world test.
Although Nvidia has demonstrated this game using the RTX 20 series ray-tracing technology, the initial release of the game available at this publishing does not support ray tracing.
(It's supposed to be added in a post-release patch.)
The CPU tends to be a limiter at the low resolutions.
Focusing on the 4K numbers, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Founders Edition($799.00 at NVIDIA) wins out, but not by a major amount; the difference is less than 5 percent.
Rise of the Tomb Raider
The 2015 predecessor to Shadow of the Tomb Raider is still a great benchmark.
The difference is more substantial in this game than its successor; the Zotac RTX 2080 Amp has almost a 10 percent advantage at 4K over the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Founders Edition.
However, this could be a benchmarking difference only; so far, the other benchmarks have indicated the cards are neck-and-neck.
Hitman (2016)
An early DirectX 12-enabled game, Hitman isn't quite as demanding now as it was at release.
Now we're back to normal, with the Zotac GeForce RTX 2080 Amp performing about the same as the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Founders Edition.
Note how the older and similarly priced Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition has continued keeping the pace.
Far Cry 5 and Far Cry Primal
We're looping these two games together since the benchmarking results are so similar, and both are based on the same engine.
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Founders Edition held a consistent edge in this benchmark over the Zotac GeForce RTX 2080 Amp at 4K resolution, to the tune of over 10 percent.
Again, though, based on how close most of the other benchmarks were between these two cards, it doesn't seem realistic that either would be that much faster than the other.
Final Fantasy XV
We'll take a respite from fps-based benchmarks for Final Fantasy XV.
Once again, we're back to normal, with the Nvidia RTX 2080 Founders Edition and the Zotac RTX 2080 Amp almost dead even.
World of Tanks Encore
This is another non-fps-based benchmark that's available as a free download.
It's not super-demanding, but still a reliable test that approximates performance with a massively multiplayer open-world battle game.
The slightly higher factory overclock in the Zotac RTX 2080 Amp gives it an equally slight edge over the Nvidia RTX 2080 Founders Edition, but it's not much of a victory.
The differences are within the margin of error.
Tom Clancy: The Division
A 2016 release that remains tough to handle, here's our final DirectX 12-specific game test.
Our last benchmark, this game doesn't buck the trend of the Zotac RTX 2080 Amp performing similarly to the Nvidia RTX 2080 Founders Edition.
And How About Some Legacy Games?
We also tested with the following four aged titles to see what the card would do with some classics…
As you can see, Zotac's Amp card was in near-perfect lockstep, within a frame or two, of the GeForce RTX 2080 Founders Edition in all four titles at all three resolutions.
Overclocking and Cooling
The massive heatsink on the GeForce RTX 2080 Amp is the main reason to spend extra for this card.
It comprises an impressive five 8mm copper heatpipes that are connected to aluminum heatsink fins.
Another heatsink on the opposite side of the card handles heat from the GDDR6 memory.
The three 90mm fans were rarely audible during my 4K gaming sessions.
Even with the door off my test rig, I had to put my ear to within two feet of the card to make out the fans spinning.
The only instance I managed to get the RTX 2080 Amp to generate real noise was while running an overclocking stability test in Zotac's FireStorm software.
The fans were loud enough to be heard in the next room over in that instance, but I saw no rhyme or reason why; the temperatures were well under control, so the software was merely forcing the fans to run at their maximum.
Provided the card isn't being starved of airflow and it's not running in the middle of the desert, the RTX 2080 Amp should be all but inaudible while gaming.
Here's a chart of the core clock and temperature over a 30-minute 4K playthrough of Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
The core clock averaged 1,904MHz, or quite a bit higher than the 1,830MHz factory-rated boost clock.
The card automatically boosts itself further if temperature and power limits allow.
The takeaway here is the consistent performance throughout the benchmark.
The core clock oscillated more than it did when I tested the Nvidia RTX 2080 Founders Edition, but the GPU temperature on this Zotac card is far more stable, averaging 64 degrees C.
I have no doubt you could force the fan speed higher on the Zotac to lower the temperature further, but why would you want to? The RTX 2080 is rated for 88 degrees C, and this isn't even close.
Let's see what overclocking does for the temperatures.
Zotac's FireStorm overclocking utility seemed to have a habit of crashing my display driver, so I switched it out for MSI Afterburner 4.6 Beta 9.
(Zotac told us it's in the process of updating its software.) With the GPU temperature, power limit, and voltage sliders set to their maximum, I used the built-in Nvidia Scanner to overclock the RTX 2080 Amp.
After running for 20 minutes, it gave me a recommended 1,937MHz boost clock, or a 107MHz increase on an already overclocked card.
Not bad for pressing a button.
Here's how the card performed in the same scenario as above.
Notice how much higher the blue core clock line is than before.
This time it averaged 2,027MHz, or 6.4 percent higher than before the overclock.
The average temperature was just 3 degrees higher than before at 67 degrees C.
I don't need any more convincing that the cooler on the RTX 2080 Amp has plenty of headroom for further overclocking.
Here are performance benchmarks for the standard RTX 2080 Amp versus the Nvidia Scanner-obtained overclock.
Note these numbers can't be compared to the benchmarking results from PC Labs, as I used a different test rig for this.
The test rig has an Intel Core i7-7700K processor, 16GB of Corsair memory, a solid-state boot drive, and an MSI Z270 Gaming M5 motherboard.
Zotac GeForce RTX 2080 Amp (OC Via Nvidia Scanner) | Zotac GeForce RTX 2080 Amp (Stock) | Overclock Versus Stock | |
|---|---|---|---|
3DMark Fire Strike Ultra (Graphics Score) | 6,784 | 6,482 | +5% |
3DMark Time Spy (Graphics Score) | 10,900 | 10,419 | +5% |
Shadow of the Tomb Raider (4K, Highest, DX12) | 45fps | 45fps | Even |
Far Cry 5 (4K, Ultra) | 58fps | 56fps | +4% |
AVERAGE | +3% |
All in all, the overclocking didn't make a playable...
