The card looks fantastic. The orange and black colour scheme of the cooler works extremely well together. The fans are an translucent yet bright orange which are framed by a contrasting gloss black frame. Both the fans and frame are made from thin plastic which may break if handled incorrectly yet the card still feels heavy. I would have preferred to have an aluminium frame instead of plastic as I do feel over time, the flimsy frame could break if you change hardware often.




The matt black power circuit board adds to the overall aesthetics of the card with the continuing black/orange theme. The card measures just 23cm long which is great news for those who are limited on space. Sadly, the card is still dual slot but this is the same of all GF114 core GPUs.



Overall the card is that of a supermodel. Demur yet striking, fragile yet empowering. This card is potentially one of the best looking designs we have seen this year which is sadly let down by the plastic frame. Were it to have a brushed, black aluminium frame, the card would simply look perfect but alas, mid-range cards have to keep costs under control so it is easy to see where cuts have been made here.



The I/O area is a standard affair but yet again, ZOTAC have paid attention to the visuals by colour coding the DVI ports and have used a gun metal grey shield. Excellent! To the left of the two DVI ports (which support up to 2560x1600) we see an mini HDMI port. Above the ports is the main vent of the card. I do however wonder at the usefulness of this as with the card being an open cooler design, hot air will still escape into the case which is sadly the Achilles heel of such an attractive design.



Despite having a TDP of 150w, the card still requires 2x6pin PCIe power ports. ZOTAC advise a minimum 450w power supply unit which is capable of providing 24A on the 12v rail. The ports are positioned on the end of the card which is the best position for a card of this size as there should still be space between the power ports and hard drives which cannot always be said for larger graphics cards. This helps keep cables tidy and out of sight.



The ZOTAC GTX560 1GB AMP! Edition is SLI capable but sadly only two can be used together due to the lack of twin SLI tabs. We will be putting SLI to the test by pairing this card to another GTX560 with a view to analysing how it scales compared to high end, single video graphics adapters.



Overall, the card is very well designed throughout. I cannot praise ZOTAC enough for the gorgeous colour scheme which will make this card stand out from the crowd. They have obviously gone to great lengths to make the card as visually appealing as possible and to that point I believe they have succeeded as this card is without a doubt, the best looking GTX560 we have seen. NVIDIA gave their partners artistic license through not having a reference cooler of their own to produce bespoke GPU coolers so while we are yet to analyse the performance of the cooler, on looks alone it is winning already.

Looks can however be deceiving so I think it's time we removed the cooler and take a look at the card in greater depth...