Powerful, cool and loud: Zotac GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Amp! Extremes in the test

So, or something like that, the R&D department at Zotac must have thought when the new project was approached. But the fact that even then something can go wrong and pencil-tipping accountants hand over the rather worse designers, will be... Zotac bets on the Zotac GTX 1070 Ti Amp! Extreme on the same board as with the Zotac GTX 1080 Amp! Extreme, but there are still two clearer differences. On the one hand, the PCB manufacturer has switched from PALWONN to Victory Giant, ... Important preliminary remark We had already mentioned it at the beginning that almost exclusively the resulting boost clock rates of each GTX 1070 Ti determine the final performance and thus the so-called GPU lottery and not the manufacturer and model.... Power consumption at different loads The power consumption in the gaming loop is pretty much exactly on the point that Zotac set as the power target with 180 watts in the BIOS. In the Torture loop, the power consumption even drops below this value. A... Overclocking Whether it's the propagated 1-click overclocking via Zotac's software or a real manual overclocking with suitable tools- the limits of this card are identical to those of the competitors. With an adjustable Power Target of 14...cooling system and backplate The total of 24 MOSFETS of the eight phases of the GPU supply lie under a passive cooler, which is to be cooled by the air flow from above. What went wrong with the GTX 1080 works amazingly here. ... Summary Where should we start in order to remain objective and fair? If a product comes with a completely loveless fan control and already in idle the same fan speeds as with Furmark in the closed housing,...

Cooling system and backplate

The total of 24 MOSFETS of the eight phases of the GPU supply lie under a passive cooler, which is to be cooled by the air flow from above. What went wrong with the GTX 1080 works amazingly here.

We will see why this is the case. Hear. This very spartan cooler needs one thing above all: a decent air flow.

Cooling system at a glance
Type of cooler:	Air
Heatsink:	Copper heat sink for the GPU Memory cooling (modules, voltage converters) via mounting frame on the heat sink
Cooling fins:	Aluminum, horizontal alignment related
Heatpipes	4x 8 mm, 2x 6 mm, copper composite
VRM cooling:	GPU VRM over small, passive rib heatsinks Storage VRM indirectly via cooling frame
RAM cooling	via mounting frame and indirectly via the heatsink
Fan:	3x 9.2 cm fan modules (8.7 cm rotor diameter) 9 rotor blades each fixed minimum speed (39%) no semi-passive regulation
Backplate	Aluminum no cooling function, foiled inside RGB Effects

Zotac relies on a solid copper heat sink, four 8 mm and two 6 mm heat pipes made of copper composite material as well as on a large base plate made of aluminium, which simultaneously the memory modules and the two voltage converter phases for the storage Cools.

Fan curves and noise emission ("volume")

The fan curves show ruthlessly that Zotac has completely squandered itself here. Instead of a semi-passive control, which was, however, on the Zotac GTX 1080 Amp! Extreme also didn't really work, this time you bet on a much too high set minimum speed of 39%, which is well over 1250 rpm and is therefore even higher than with the GTX 1080 under longer full load in the closed housing!

When asked by Zotac, we received the following explanation:

The 39% fan percentage minimum was a requirement from NVIDIA… The card doesn't support semi-passive mode because we didn't have enough time to implement the new version of Fan stop. So rather then using the original version of fan stop which did not work as well, we decided to remove it.

Well, let's hope for an improved BIOS, that then also nvidia's Green Light program for a release.

The whole thing doesn't look much different with the stress test. In summary, it can be said that despite three fans, the card is acoustically already a daredevil, in which no further speed changes take place even under load. In this form, this is really rather meaningless, unfortunately.

There would be enough reserves to let the fans rotate a little slower, at least in the idle, to get the card quieter.

Measurements for fans and noise emission
Fan speeds Open Benchtable Maximum	1282 rpm
Fan speeds Open Benchtable Average	1274 rpm
Fan Speeds Closed Case Maximum	1296 rpm
Fan Speeds Closed Case Average	1282 rpm
Noise emission (air) Maximum	40.1 dB(A)
Noise Emission (Air) Average	39.7 dB(A)
Noise Emission (Air) Idle	39.2 dB(A)
Sound characteristic / Hearing impression	hardly lower frequency bearing noises easily audible engine noise< 1 Hz Air/destruction noise light voltage transformer noises

To illustrate our subjective audio impression once again, we now have a high-resolution graphic with the complete frequency spectrum of our laboratory measurement:

The almost 40 dB(A) are also not a brilliant performance in the Idle and therefore call into question the complete card. Did Zotac just not want to complete this (apparently unloved) GTX 1070 Ti? I don't think we'll ever know.

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