It’s been almost 2 months since NVIDIA announced its new GeForce RTX cards, but we have yet to actually experience any of the new RTX features from any of the games from the list of known RTX games to date.
While everyone are still waiting for the response from the game developers, let’s just have a look at the ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 2080 Ti AMP we have here. As of now, the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is probably the most powerful single GPU graphics card you can find in the consumer market, but just how much difference can we really get in terms of the raw performance as compared to the top tier of the previous gen GeForce GTX 10 series cards?
Specifications
GPU Model | GeForce RTX 2080 Ti |
CUDA Cores | 4352 |
Base Clock | 1350 MHz |
Boost Clock | 1665 MHz |
Effective Memory Clock | 14000 MHz |
Display Output | 3 x DisplayPort (4096×2160 @ 60Hz) HDMI 2.0 (3840×2160 @ 60Hz) |
Memory Size | 11264 MB GDDR6 |
Memory Bus Width | 352-bit |
Memory Bandwidth | 616 GB/s |
Interface | PCI-Express 3.0 x16 |
Thermal Design Power | 260W |
Recommended Power Supply | 650W |
Power Input | 2 x 8-pin |
Dimension | 308mm x 113mm x 57mm |
Slot Size | 2.5 Slot |
Unboxing
Packaging wise, looks like ZOTAC putting on the ZOTAC Gaming mantle this time design for its GeForce RTX cards. More greyish, low poly geometrical design can be seen on the box instead of the usual ZOTAC yellow. Also, the box is huge, probably the biggest one we’ve seen so far.
That aside, you’ll also find the highlighted features i.e ZOTAC’s new Fire Storm software, the RGB features, as well as the new Ray Tracing and GDDR6 memory of the latest GeForce RTX cards.
At the back of the box, you’ll find a brief description of the product itself, along with a list of features, minimum system requirements and the specifications of the card.
While we don’t usually highlight the inner packaging when it comes to unboxing a graphics card, this one is the first exception. What you have here is actually a transparent cover that comes with black stripes to create an optical illusion, where the image of the fan appears to be spinning as you remove the transparent cover from the box.
The extra effort from ZOTAC in providing a different kind of unboxing experience is definitely something worth to be highlighted.
There’s not much accessories you can find the the box though. All you’ll get is two pieces of Dual 6-pin to 8-pin adapter and a pack of papers that includes quick installation guide, product catalog and welcome note.
As for the card, it’s very well packaged in the box. If you happens to have a not so great courier around you, the extremely thick protective foam that the ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 2080 Ti AMP is placed in ensures higher survivability of the card from most of the bad handling – thumbs up for that.
The ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 2080 Ti AMP
Starting of with the dimension (308mm x 113mm x 57mm, taking up 2.5 slots) of the card, the ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 2080 Ti AMP is a pretty lengthy card to begin with, and thick one as well. If you take a closer look at it, other than the 3 cooling fans available, the cooler shroud of the ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 2080 Ti AMP actually resembles the design of the GTX 10 series Founders Edition cooler.
While the earlier batches of the RTX 20 series cards are pretty much the same in terms of the PCB used – since it’s all based on the reference design, you won’t be seeing too much of the fancy RGB blingy elements, yet. For those of you who aren’t really into RGB, this is probably something for you to consider.
Since NVIDIA too has equipped their Founders Edition cards with a twin cooling fan cooler, we can somewhat expect the amount heat from the new Turing GPU. Here we can see that ZOTAC has a thick heatsink with a large amount of aluminum fins that is paired with a total of three cooling fans for its ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 2080 Ti AMP. The PCB of the card too is reinforced with a full cover metal back plate and middle plate for extra rigidity and extra heat dissipation for the components that in contact with both the metal plates.
As for the cooling fan, ZOTAC has something new for this round of release. The new fan blade design is known as the multi-stage blade, which according to ZOTAC, is able to generate multiple air currents that helps to cool down the card with minimal effort.
Like we’ve mentioned earlier, the RGB elements is very minimal on the ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 2080 Ti AMP. Just in case if you’re not really into RGB, the lighting can be disabled as well. For the power requirement, you’ll need a power supply unit with 650W and two 8-pin PCIe power connector to power up the card.
Last but not least, you’ll have three DisplayPort 1.4, one HDMI 2.0b and USB Type-C for your display output. The USB Type-C port here are meant for the next generation VR headset, but you can also charge your USB Type-C device i.e tablet, smartphone or transfer file using this port.
Test System Setup
For our games benchmark test, we’ve selected a number of AAA titles to run at its highest possible settings using the following setup under ambient temperature of 31°C:
CPU | Intel Core i7 8700K @5GHz |
Motherboard | ASUS ROG Maximus X Apex |
Memory | G.Skill TridentZ RGB 16GB @3200MHz |
Graphics Card | ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 2080 Ti AMP |
Power Supply | Cooler Master V1200 |
Primary Storage | Apacer Panther S340 |
Secondary Storage | WD Black 6TB |
CPU Cooler | Raijintek Orcus 240 |
Chassis | Cooler Master Test Bench V1 |
Operating System | Windows 10 |
The test is done separately for games that support both DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 at the resolution of 1920×1080, 2560×1440 and 3840×2160 using the RTX 2080 against its predecessor, the GTX 1080 Ti.
Games Benchmark – DirectX 11
As we all know, a single GTX 1080 Ti is already a pretty powerful graphics card to begin with and it can handle almost every AAA titles on 1080p at above 60fps with ease. From the performance comparison above, we can see that the ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 2080 Ti AMP leads the game with ease, but gaming on 1080p isn’t enough to show what the card is capable of.
On a slightly higher resolution, we can see that the GTX 1080 Ti started to struggle a little on demanding title like HITMAN on 1440p, not being able to keep up to 60fps on average. As for the ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 2080 Ti AMP, we can see that the card have no problem in keeping up with an average of 60fps for all of the selected titles.
On our 4K benchmark, we have all the titles running at its the highest possible settings with anti-aliasing disabled. Although the selected titles are still playable on the GTX 1080 Ti, the average fps for most of the titles are under the ideal 60fps. The ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 2080 Ti AMP on the other hand, still manage to maintain at 60fps average for majority of the titles, except for HITMAN and Watch Dogs 2.
Games Benchmark – DirectX 12
Bigger performance gap can be observed from the DirectX 12 games test, where the ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 2080 Ti AMP overwhelmed the GTX 1080 Ti in most of the titles used for the test. With Total War: WARHAMMER as exception, we’re looking at a difference of at least 22% performance difference.
Moving on to 1440p, both the ZOTAC Gaming RTX 2080 TI AMP and GTX 1080 Ti appears to be holding up pretty well still, except for HITMAN. With the GTX 1080 Ti already dropping under 60fps on one title, the ZOTAC Gaming RTX 2080 TI AMP still remain unfazed with an average 60fps, almost.
As for the gaming performance on 4K, this is where the ZOTAC Gaming RTX 2080 TI AMP shines. Other than the surprising demanding HITMAN on 4K, it’s able to hold up pretty well for the rest of the titles and widen its performance gap with the GTX 1080 Ti.
On side note, it seems that ZOTAC is doing a pretty great job with its new cooling fan and cooler design for the ZOTAC Gaming RTX 2080 TI AMP. The GPU temperature hovers between 64°C to 66°C throughout the test and 34°C during idle. The only downside, a rather subjective one, would be the lack of the 0db fan design.
First Impressions
If you plan to game on 1080p and 1440p, the ZOTAC Gaming RTX 2080 TI AMP can handle almost every AAA titles thrown at it without much issue – though, that’ll be a waste for such a capable card. Based on the numbers that we’ve gathered from the test, we can see that gaming on 4K is one of the way to display the capability of the ZOTAC Gaming RTX 2080 TI AMP, but that’s just a small part of it. Of course, there’s not deny that the ZOTAC Gaming RTX 2080 TI AMP is still a beast in terms of raw performance.
Even though we’ve already received the Windows 10 October 2018 update, there’s still no way for us to properly gauge the RTX 2080 Ti without any RTX games. Until the game developers releases the list of RTX games mentioned during NVIDIA’s keynote at Gamescom 2018, there’s still not way for us to explore the untapped potential of the dedicated RT and Tensor cores on the Turing GPU.
Hence, it’s still too early for us to justify whether it is worth spending RM 5,379 on the ZOTAC Gaming RTX 2080 TI AMP, really. But if you’re in for the pure raw performance, or perhaps a good wait for the upcoming RTX games, then the ZOTAC Gaming RTX 2080 TI AMP is one of the choice of GeForce RTX 2080 Ti to consider for.