When comparing ZOTAC GTX 1080 AMP! Extreme vs MSI GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING X 8G, the Slant community recommends ZOTAC GTX 1080 AMP! Extreme for most people. In the question“What are the best GTX 1080 cards?” ZOTAC GTX 1080 AMP! Extreme is ranked 3rd while MSI GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING X 8G is ranked 6th. The most important reason people chose ZOTAC GTX 1080 AMP! Extreme is:
Both the GPU and memory clocks are slightly overclocked out of the box. This provides excellent performance without having to do much tweaking.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Overclocked out of the box
Both the GPU and memory clocks are slightly overclocked out of the box. This provides excellent performance without having to do much tweaking.
Pro Very quiet
The AMP! Extreme is probably one of the quietest cards in this category. Idle noise level is a bit hard to calculate in this case since for temperatures under 60 degrees C the fans are off, but under very light load which pushes the card to about 60 degrees C it reached a noise level of about 33dBA, comparable to the idle noise level of most 1080 cards. Under heavy load however, it registered a noise level of 38dBA, the lowest in this comparison.
Pro Excellent performance-price ratio
Performance-wise, the ZOTAC GTX 1080 AMP! Extreme achieved a 3DMark Score (Firestrike) of 19410 with minimal FPS never dropping below 86 with averages of 157.25 for FHD and 109.5 for WQHD.
At a price of $639.99, which is an average price for 1080 graphics cards and numbers that usually top benchmark charts, the ZOTAC GTX 1080 AMP! Extreme offers great value for what you will be paying.
Pro Great cooling capabilities
The 1080 AMP Extreme is equiped with three 90mm dual-bladed EKO fans, which according to Zotac increase the airflow by 30% and increase the air pressure by 15%. Furthermore, the fans are equipped on top of a heatsink with six variably configured heatpipes which greatly increases the heat extraction off the card. Or at least, that's what Zotac claims.
When idle, it does not surpass the threshold of 33 degrees C and even under heavy load it reached peak temperatures of 73 degrees C, well below the 80 degrees C set by the GTX 1080 Founders Edition.
Pro Easy to install
Only takes 5 mins to install.
Pro Generous warranty
Zotac offers a five years long warranty for this card. That's quite long for most electronics equipment, not only graphics cards.
Pro Excellent cooler
The cooler used on the Gaming X is the Twin Frozr IV and performs very well. In an idle situation, the chip measured at 36° Celsius in a room temperature of 21° C. That's a bit higher than the reference GTX 1080 - but the fans do not spin at all under 60° C for a completely silent operation. Under full load the chip heats up to 70° Celsius, which is a whopping 12 degree Celsius cooler than a GTX 1080 Founders Edition.
Pro Very quiet operation
The cooler does not spin under a temperature of 60° Celsius, making the card silent in normal situations. When the fans are needed however, the card remains very quiet. Measured from a distance of 75 centimeters from a closed environment, the Gaming X produces 39 dBA of noise. For comparison: that's a little bit more quiet than the noise a refrigerator produces. Irritating sounds such as coil whine are also not present.
Pro Smooth framerates even for 4K gaming on high graphics settings
The MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8GB offers great, smooth performance even with the most demanding graphics requirements. Here are some examples of framerates:
Rise of the Tomb Raider 4K (very high details): 49fps
Hitman (2016) UHD (Max. detail): 49fps
Fallout 4 UHD (Ultra detail): 59fps
The Witcher 3 UDH (Max detail): 51fps
While these aren't quite 60fps, they are all very close - and some of the best in-game performance available from any graphics card.
Pro Custom LED lightning
This graphics card by MSI uses LED-lights in its logo, which is adjustable via the driver software. You can adjust the color of the logo to better match your setup.
Cons
Con Large and heavy
The 1080 AMP Extreme has a metal shroud with a strong and thick metal backplate. Because of this, it's quite large and heavy.
Con Very little room for tweaking
Since it's already overclocked out of the box, there's very little room for users to get some more performance out of the card.
Con Requires additional 6-pin power connector
The MSI Gaming X version of the GTX 1080 requires an extra 6-pin power connector, for a total of one 6-pin and one 8-pin connector. A reference GTX 1080 only needs a single 8-pin connector, but this MSI card requires the extra connector because of the slightly higher clock speeds. Although the TDP (thermal design point and maximum power consumption) of the MSI Gaming X GTX 1080 has been rated at 180 watts just like the reference card, the TDP is around 198 watts in reality. It only uses 14 more watts than a reference GTX 1080 during full load, but the extra power connector can be inconvenient for cable routing or for power supplies with a limited power capacity and connectors.
Con More expensive than other overclocked GTX 1080 cards
At a recommended retail price of $729.99, the MSI Gaming X card is significantly more expensive than other overclocked GTX 1080 cards with similar or higher clock speeds and similar cooling solutions.