ZOTAC GeForce GTX 560 Ti AMP! Edition - Not a Happy Camper

ZOTAC's strategy has been clear for quite a while now – get the reference graphics card out quickly, and then follow it up with a factory overclocked AMP Edition – and the GTX 560 Ti is no exception, especially with its great overclocking overhead. ZOTAC were kind enough to provide a piece for review, so let’s find out if the card is worth it.

This won’t be a full-fledged review though, because we’ve already reviewed the ZOTAC GTX 560 Ti and the ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP in a shootout a while ago. In case you missed it, you can check it out here.

Design and Packaging
The packaging for the Zotac GTX 560 Ti AMP Edition is nearly identical to its reference card, with the trademark black and orange making a return. The fact that it’s an overclocked SKU is not displayed prominently enough, which might make it difficult for some to quickly point it out. Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood is featured rather prominently on the cover, which lead to a friend of mine asking me if it was the card that was bundled with the game. It’s the other way around though, with a redeemable coupon inside. Bundled game aside, the GTX 560 Ti AMP Edition ships with the standard cables and accessories – Driver CD, Manual, 2x Molex to 6-pin PCI-E power converter, along with DVI-to-VGA and mini HDMI-to-HDMI adapters.

Nearly identical to the reference GTX 560 Ti

The card’s design is remarkably similar to the reference card too. Black and Orange colour scheme, meshed vents, GTX 460 cooler – the works. There are a couple of changes though – and both are for the worse. Firstly, the connectivity options have been reduced from 2xDVI, mini-HDMI and DisplayPort to just the 2xDVI and mini-HDMI ports. The other, more disturbing, change is that the power connectors have been placed at the side of the card – facing the drive bays. This just Switched me Off completely to be honest, mainly because it’s an absolutely unnecessary change that causes more grief than joy for the user.

Specs
The AMP! Edition’s specs are similar to the reference card too, surprise surprise. The factory overclock is an extremely good one though, topping off at 950MHz, which is nearly a 130MHz improvement over the reference card’s 823MHz. It’s also a full 50MHz over the ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP, and the trend continues with the shader and the memory clocks. Check out the specs and the GPU-Z screenie below.

Specs

CPU-Z