Just when I thought I’ve seen it all when it comes to GTX 950 cards, the ZOTAC GTX 950 AMP! Edition gave me another surprise.
The card is beautiful, what you see here is some carbon detailing that’s part of what is called the Carbon Exoarmor which is part of ZOTAC’s IceStorm cooling system.
From the top, you’ll see more of the cooling system that covers not just the fan area but also the back. The GTX 950 AMP! Edition comes is powered with a 6-pin PCI-E power connector, allowing the card to draw up to 150W of power.
At the back is a metal wrap-around backplate for added protection and vibration reduction.
The video output ports are quite lacking though, unlike other brands where you have quite a few DisplayPorts, the GTX 950 AMP! Edition comes with only one HDMI and DisplayPort while providing 2 DVI ports.
Here’s the GPU-Z of the ZOTAC GTX 950 AMP! Edition.
More details at the official product page.
Overclocking
The ZOTAC GTX 950 AMP! Edition is overclocked so much that I can’t even get it to clock 50Mhz, let alone getting an overclock that provides substantial speed boost.
Benchmarks
Unigine Heaven 4.0
*NOTE : Details are set to maximum.
| Card | 1080p (avg) |
| ZOTAC GTX 950 AMP! Edition | 32 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 XTREME GAMING | 31 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 | 30 |
| Nvidia GTX 960 2GB (Reference) | 32 |
Metro Last Light
| Card | 1080p (avg) |
| ZOTAC GTX 950 AMP! Edition | 52 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 XTREME GAMING | 50 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 | 46 |
| Nvidia GTX 960 2GB (Reference) | 53 |
Bioshock Infinite
Settings are at
2 – UltraDX11_DDOF | 2 – Custom | 1 – 16:9 | 4 – FullHD / 4K
| Card | 1080p (avg) |
| ZOTAC GTX 950 AMP! Edition | 72 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 XTREME GAMING | 71 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 | 67 |
| Nvidia GTX 960 2GB (Reference) | 78 |
Shadow of Mordor
Settings : Set to ULTRA, V-sync off.
| Card | 1080p (avg) |
| ZOTAC GTX 950 AMP! Edition | 44 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 XTREME GAMING | 43 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 | 37 |
| Nvidia GTX 960 2GB (Reference) | 42 |
Grand Theft Auto V
Settings : Every option to the MAX setting available.
| Card | 1080p (avg) |
| ZOTAC GTX 950 AMP! Edition | 23 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 XTREME GAMING | 19 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 | 19 |
| Nvidia GTX 960 2GB (Reference) | 23 |
Temperature
Furmark Burn-in Test was used to stress the card. Fan settings are at Auto. Room set to ~25c.
| Card | Idle(°C) | Load (°C) |
| ZOTAC GTX 950 AMP! Edition | 30 | 76 |
| ZOTAC GTX 950 AMP! Edition Full RPM | 28 | 67 |
The fan hovers at around 38% on AUTO settings where the noise level is silent.
Power Consumption
The stress was done with Furmark Burn-in Test. Power consumption reading was taken from the watt-meter, actual power draw by the entire system from the wall point. I’m using an FSP Aurum S 700W with 90% efficiency and the estimated system power draw (CPU, not including GPU) during Furmark test is 60w.
| Card | ZOTAC GTX 950 AMP! Edition |
| Furmark Burn-in | 220 |
| Estimated Actual System Draw | 198 |
| Estimated Card Power Draw | 138 |
At 138W the card draws a lot more power than the supposed 90W rated power draw for the reference design.
The Verdict
The ZOTAC GTX 950 AMP! Edition is priced at around US$200, unfortunately this card is not to be available in Malaysia due to pricing issues. That said it’s not a bad card at all, you get pretty much a GTX 960 performance but with a really nice cooler. Go with this card if you’re the type that’s willing to pay for aesthetics over the slight performance difference.
