Card appearance
Take a look at our reference look to appreciate what makes a GeForce 9800 GTX+ tick along.
ZOTAC's GeForce
9800 GTX+ AMP! Edition appears physically identical to other reference
9800 GTX+ designs, aside from the ZOTAC-branded dragon graphic.
The only real difference between the AMP! edition and reference cards, then, comes in the form of slightly higher clock-speeds. The card ships with a 756MHz core speed, 128 shader units running at 1,890MHz and 512MB GDDR3 clocking in at 2,300MHz - which represent increases of only 2.4, 2.9 and 4.5 percent, respectively, over reference clocks (738/1,836/2,200MHz) - and the above-stock increases are lower than we've come to expect from ZOTAC's AMP! line.
The AMP! edition uses the reference 9800 GTX+ dual-slot cooler, which is no bad thing considering the card runs both cool and quiet, even when overclocked.
Viewing
the card from the rear makes the dual SLI bridges more apparent. These
bridges enable either two- or three-card SLI.
The
9800 GTX+ requires two 6-pin PCIe power connectors to feed
its
power requirements. ZOTAC suggest at minimum a 450W PSU
with at
least 24A available on the +12V rail.
ZOTAC ships the card with a
sticker covering the power connectors, reminding you to
connect them up before use - but, if anything, we reckon you're more
likely to overlook the covered connectors.
In the
centre of the top you'll find the S/PDIF-input for passing
audio over HDMI when you use the included DVI-to-HDMI adapter..
The
heatsink shroud draws air over the VRM circuits to keep them cool.
Display
output is handled by two dual-link DVI connections
and a TV-out.
HDMI (with audio), VGA, Component and Composite outputs are available using the bundled adapters, however.
Summary
A reference-looking card that ships with a slight clock-speed increase. Problem is, it ships with an etail price of around £150.
