Conclusion
In this review, we took the ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3070 AMP Holo LHR for a ride on our test bench to see how this mid-market RTX 3070 GPU would compare to the AMD Radeon RX 6800. It commands a $130 premium over the RTX 3070 Founders Edition card but also brings a more traditional three fan cooler and an impressive factory overclock to the game. Of course, it’s about as rare as hens’ teeth in the market, but we’ll complain about that elsewhere.
Gaming Performance
1440p
The ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3070 AMP Holo LHR performed well, however generally fell short of the performance turned in by the AMD Radeon RX 6800. It provided a solid 1440p gaming experience with all of the image quality knobs turned up to 11 (except for Ray Tracing). If you’re rocking a 1440p monitor, the ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3070 AMP Holo LHR will do just fine for your gaming needs at this time.
4K
Moving up to 4K gave us a bit more indigestion than 1440p did. Horizon Zero Dawn, Dirt 5, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider turned in playable results while Cyberpunk 2077, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Metro Exodus circled the drain rather slowly. While the ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3070 AMP Holo LHR generally brought up the rear at 4k, none of the cards provided a good 4k gaming experience.
Ray Tracing and DLSS
From our testing, it is very clear that NVIDIA dominates Ray Tracing performance in games. When Ray Tracing was added to the testing equation, the ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3070 AMP Holo LHR picked up the pace and jumped ahead of the Radeon RX 6800. However, that difference is quite moot due to none of the cards producing a great gaming experience with Ray Tracing at 1440p.
Adding DLSS to the mix brought the frame rate up enough for a good gaming experience with Ray Tracing turned on. It especially helped in Cyberpunk 2077 where the game was performing as if it was running at seconds per frame. It’s fair to state in the games tested with Ray Tracing and DLSS that you get a playable experience with the ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3070 AMP Holo LHR GPU.
At 4K though, ”near playable” would be a very optimistic way to describe performance – “just don’t even” describes it better. Perhaps the better approach here would be to run DLSS with no Ray Tracing if you want to take a shot at 4k gaming with the ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3070 AMP Holo LHR video card.
Power and Temperature
The ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3070 AMP Holo LHR maintained its cool at 68.1 degrees Celsius with its default configuration and dropped to 60.8 degrees Celsius when overclocked and its fans set to full blast.
The ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3070 AMP Holo LHR was also a moderate power user, using a total of 240W of GPU package power while gaming, landing 12W below the AMD Radeon RX 6800. Overclocking only increased power draw by 29W.
Overclocking
The ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3070 AMP Holo LHR entered the match with a factory overclock that gave it a running start compared to the GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition. We were able to take it to the next level and stabilized at an average 2025MHz and 16.4GHz memory. That makes the observed core clock 150MHz and the memory 2400MHz faster than the stock Founders Edition.
Overall, this is a fairly middling overclock compared to other cards that we’ve seen on a GeForce RTX 3070 GPU. As with all other cards, the real-world performance fluctuates significantly from title to title. This tells us that the GPU boost was pushing down the performance as we bumped on the power limits of the card.
Final Points
To wrap things up, the ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3070 AMP Holo LHR is a solid contender from ZOTAC. We saw it perform as expected and exceed the expectations set by NVIDIA’s RTX 3070 Founder’s Edition. The unique HoloBlack design color profile and SPECTRA 2.0 ARGB LED distribution sporting two fans makes it a fashion statement in your rig by adding some flair.
When comparing the ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3070 AMP Holo LHR to the AMD Radeon RX 6800, it typically lags behind by a good margin (as do all RTX 3070 based cards), however, it’s able to provide the same gaming experience across the suite that we tested. Plus, you must consider DLSS, with DLSS enabled in games that support it the ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3070 AMP Holo LHR can surpass the Radeon RX 6800 greatly in performance even without Ray Tracing.
If you’re focused only on rasterization performance or have concerns about the amount of VRAM, then the RX 6800 might be the better option for you at this price point. However, the ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3070 AMP Holo LHR has a large advantage when using Ray Tracing in conjunction with DLSS.
With all things considered, if you have a split second to buy a 30 Series GPU, then the ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3070 AMP Holo LHR is absolutely worth making the purchase and enjoying your upgraded gaming experience, but there are certainly better RTX 3070 cards out there.