Zotac International has officially jumped on Nvidia’s Pascal bandwagon with the upcoming launch of a GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition graphics card. It’s the first in a line of Zotac GeForce GTX 10 Series of cards, and will be joined by the Zotac GeForce GTX 1080 AMP and GeForce 1080 AMP Extreme cards. All three will strut their stuff next week during Computex 2016 in Taipei, Taiwan.
Right now, the company is rather secretive about the actual hardware details of all three cards. However, Zotac calls the Founders Edition model introduced by Nvidia as “groundbreaking.” The company says it has enhanced that design with greater speed while keeping the card nice and cool during marathon sessions by using “outstanding” thermals.
The Founders Edition of both the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 will cost more than the baseline cards. They’re reference card designs provided by Nvidia that feature an upgraded power supply, an upgraded power delivery network on the board itself, extra capacitance in the filtering network, and a removable section built into the backplate for better airflow in SLI configurations. The Founders Edition cards will be different in appearance, too, thanks to an industrial design and a faceted body.
Third-party manufacturers like Zotac are expected to take these Founders Edition cards to the next level with overclock profiles and custom designs. These two factors should make them attractive and unique when compared to the vanilla Founders Edition cards Nvidia plans to release through its website later this year.
As for Zotac’s AMP and AMP Extreme line of cards, the company said they are redesigned, offer new features, and are more powerful than previous AMP-based models thanks to the GeForce GTX 1080 chip. Both solutions feature the company’s Spectra lighting system that can be customized using the overhauled FireStorm utility. Thus, customers can spice up their desktops with a number of colors and lighting effects based on the Zotac graphics card alone.
“Firestorm, the Zotac graphics card fine-tuning utility, has acquired a new look dotted with new features,” the company told the press. “The biggest addition is the Spectra lighting system functions. Users are able to adjust the color, brightness, and lighting style of the graphics card with a few mouse clicks. The performance-tweaking and fan settings have been revamped to [be] more user-friendly.”
Zotac said both cards will support its Power Boost technology, which provides stable, smooth power delivery, minimizing power fluctuations and toning down ripple noise. There’s also the company’s proprietary Freeze technology that regulates the card’s cooling fans, including by putting the card into silent mode when it goes idle.
Zotac went into a little more detail about the AMP Extreme version, saying that it will require space for two cards, even though it plugs into one slot. It will also sport a re-engineered IceStorm cooling system that the company said will enhance the card’s overall performance and thermal regulation. This system will provide up to 30 percent more airflow when compared to traditional fans, the company said.
Additionally, the retooled IceStorm system used on the AMP Extreme card will be visually brighter thanks to the Spectra lighting, and use three ultrawide fans with EKO Fan performance to make sure that GPU stays supercool. IceStorm will be tougher and prettier overall, too, thanks to ExoArmor reinforcement and a durable aesthetic finish.
As previously mentioned, all three cards will be showcased next week during Computex 2016. We’ll probably get more hardware details then, along with street dates and prices. Right now, Zotac representatives don’t know the final speed of the GPU and memory on these cards.
