Sapphire PURE Innovation - ATI's Chipset for the AMD Enthusiast
by Wesley Fink on July 29, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Overclocking
Maximum overclock data was added to Performance graphs beginning with the nForce4 SLI roundup several months ago. The overclocking performance graphs should allow for better comparison of the overclocking capabilities of tested boards. For more details on the specific overclocking abilities of a specific board, please refer to the Overclocking and Memory Stress Test section of individual board reviews. Since the Sapphire PURE Innovation and the dual GPU slot ATI Crossfire AMD are based on the same chipset, performance should be very similar and directly comparable.
The overclocking performance of the Sapphire PURE Innovation was impressive to say the least. A 245 Clock Frequency at stock multiplier is the highest overclock that we have ever seen with this reference processor. Reaching 245 when the best boards that we have tested did 238 and 240 is a strong indication of excellent voltage stability under stress in the Sapphire.
302 at lower multipliers is not the highest value that we have reached in past testing, but it does place the Sapphire ATI in the company of the few excellent overclocking Athlon 64 boards that have managed to reach a stable 50% or better frequency overclock at lower ratios.
ATI has made tremendous progress in board design, since we looked at the initial Bullhead board last November. In this Sapphire for AMD and the upcoming Crossfire AMD, ATI has produced motherboards that will definitely please the AMD enthusiast.
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RobFDB - Saturday, July 30, 2005 - link
Guess you missed where i said "(with the exception of MSI)". Learn to read mate before you go posting.RobFDB - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
ATI and Sapphire should be congratulated for bringing the AC880 to AMD users. We had it good with Soundstorm but since then onboard audio as gone back several steps (with the exception of MSI). Its good that AMD users are being given the option to have quality onboard audio.bob661 - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
This what impresses me the most about these boards is this codec support. I still won't buy an ATI chipset until the third or fourth version comes out (you guys can test it for me) but impressive features and performance nonetheless.jab98 - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
*codecerwos - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
"[AMD] Enthusiast" is written with a capital E in the article, and it should not be, since it's not a proper noun. Please fix this error, because it looks grossly unprofessional to anyone with a reasonable command of the written word.RobFDB - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
Really though, get over it. It doesnt matter in the slightest if we're being honest here. Anyway back to more important matters.I'm really happy that ATI have managed to bring a top performing board aimed at enthusiasts to market. I was also extremely impressed to see Sapphire implement 4v for the RAM. One issue that i'd like to see investigated is wether the cold boot issue that affects DFI NF4 boards using OCZ VX mem @ high voltages affects the Sapphire board too. Aside from that this is a very impressive showing from ATI. One last thing. I have a x850XT PE and i'm not sure if that can be used as a slave card when ATI bring out the R520. If so that would make a very attractive upgrade.
rjm55 - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
The X850XT PE works fine as a slave with the X850 Master Card. In demos at Computex, ATI was showing an X850 Master with an X850XT PE slave.Jojo7 - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
This isn't exactly true. Ati distributed a special driver that SIMULATED crossfire. The actual cards were really just 2 identical x850xtpe's. Though, one probably had an altered bios to simulate a master card.Read it for yourself: http://anandtech.com/weblog/default.aspx?bid=231">http://anandtech.com/weblog/default.aspx?bid=231
dlamblin - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
Did I miss the mention in the article? Is this an ATX or an mATX board. I'm guessing the former, but it wouldn't be out of place to list the fact along side the rest.erwos - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
It's ATX. If it has more than four slots, it's too big to fit the mATX standard.