Zotac GeForce GTX 470 AMP! review

Faster than a speeding, second tier NVIDIA DX11 card...

By Adam Oxford
published
Zotac GeForce GTX 470 AMP!
NVIDIA's GTX 470 gets Zotac's overclocking treatment

TechRadar Verdict

Compares well to cards that are more expensive, but its real problem is that untuned GPUs are just so darned good.

Pros

  • +

    Beats an overclocked HD5870

  • +

    Astonishing to look at

Cons

  • -

    Three slot cooler is too big

  • -

    Not much extra overclocking headroom

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As we pointed out in the original review of the GeForce GTX 470, NVIDIA's second tier graphics card is a great chip and a fair match for the best that AMD can throw at it – the Radeon HD 5870.

If it's hard to justify the £300 price for a stock version of the card, though, is the 50MHz overclock Zotac has given its AMP! Edition worth an extra £70?

Certainly it looks like good value for money. The AMP! Edition's giant copper cooler used on both this and Zotac's GTX 480 AMP! is possibly the biggest we've ever seen on a graphics card, and also makes it a triple-socket sized card too.

It's not hugely heavy, but if you're planning to build an SLI rig, this is not the card you're looking for.

Internally, a 100MHz increase on the standard speed of a GTX 470s shader cores and another 54MHz on the memory should give it a lift over a stock card, but by how much?

Adam Oxford