don't know what are you guys talking about, but I know, that zotac I have, has the best performance, rather palit superjetstreams I have earlier.
it has higher core frequency and memory frequency, and I don't know what should a man do with a card, to brake PCB?! once installed I will never touch it again, it is working and working.
personally, I prefer to take ASUS STRIX, but by the time I have money for it, the price for Asus goes too high - more then $850. Zotac I took for $730 and Palits less then $700.. so the choice is obvious for me here
Zotac amp extreme: Very poor vrms. Poor efficiency. The cooler's massive and the gpu runs cool, but no point if it use 5-10% more power and is easier to breakdown. Search zotac 1080ti amp extreme pcb breakdown on youtube by bullzoid. avoid at all costs.
i saw this video. and they guy checked and explain everything. he said that those mosfets are not the best and they can not power more than 640A. bad. but in reality any GTX1080ti will eat not more then 200-250A, so it is kinda 3 times less. so no worries here. and specially for you the timing where he says his verdict about Zotac's PCB
https://youtu.be/whN03KB2D9k?t=879imho, card is worth it money. it is well build. yes, Asus strix is better, but Zotac is not bad, no need to "avoid at all costs"
I have 4 zotac amp extreme and 3 gigabyte extreme.
Out of these two zotac amp extreme is better.
Zotac provides more hashrate and runs cooler.