Zotac GeForce 8800 GT 512MB AMP! Edition

Zotac GeForce 8800 GT 512MB AMP! Edition

Manufacturer: Zotac
UK Price (as reviewed): £182.64 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed): $249.00 (ex. Tax)

Core Clock: 700MHz
Shader Clock: 1,674MHz
Memory Clock: 2,000MHz
Warranty: Two years (parts and labour) in Europe

Nvidia's GeForce 8800 GT is a fantastic graphics card and, back when it launched at the end of October, it really turned the graphics card market upside down by combining aggressive pricing with excellent performance. Indeed, in many scenarios, the GeForce 8800 GT can deliver very similar performance to Nvidia's long-standing flagship GeForce 8800 GTX card; that's how good it is.

While it ultimately doesn't outperform the 8800 GTX, it comes pretty damn close and you'd be stupid to spend much more on a graphics card if you're using monitor with a native resolution of either 1280x1024 or 1680x1050. Of course, with higher resolutions there are better tools for the job—and one of those tools is the GeForce 8800 GTX.

It's been a couple of months since we last looked at a card from Zotac, so today we've got the company's fastest GeForce 8800 GT 512MB card – the 8800 GT AMP! Edition. This comes with healthy clock speed increases, while also keeping a single slot cooling solution. Read on to find out how it gets on...

Box and Bundle

The box is a similar design in that it's almost the same as the one that featured in our GeForce 8800 GTS reference review. Zotac appears to have applied some consistency across its range now though, as the last few cards we've received from the company have been in orange boxes. The card's credentials are clearly marked on the front of the box, with indications of memory size, memory bus width and output capabilities listed in prominent positions.

Zotac also points out that its card is overclocked and the dragon is, well... different. On the back, there's a handy window, which lets you view the card inside the box; that's handy for brick-and-mortar sales, but it makes no difference (to the consumer at least) for Internet sales. Inside the box, the card is packed securely in a vacuum formed plastic camshell and, to ensure that the surface mount components on the rear of the card aren't damaged during transit, it's held in place with a piece of foam that helps to stop the card from rattling around.


The bundle is pretty bare, only comprising of a six-pin PCI-Express power adapter, a component and S-video out dongle, a single DVI-to-VGA converter, a paperback manual and a driver CD. The lack of software is a little disappointing when many of Zotac's competitors are bundling their cards with either a game or—at least—DVD playback software. Omitting games from the bundle is understandable, as many bundled games are either not very good or out of date, but we would expect to see at least a copy of WinDVD/PowerDVD to be included with a card that costs around £195 (inc. VAT).