Sapphire PURE Innovation - ATI's Chipset for the AMD Enthusiast
by Wesley Fink on July 29, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
General Performance
It should come as no surprise that high performance video has little impact on Winstone performance. Whether the top ATI card, the comparable NVIDIA 6800 Ultra, or the latest NVIDIA 7800GTX, Business Winstone 2004 and Content Creation 2004 results are pretty much the same at the same CPU speed. The lone exception is the 1.5 to 2 point boost given to Business Winstone 2004 by NVIDIA video cards. We have commented on this before, but still cannot explain why NVIDIA cards perform better in Business Winstone. This is most clearly demonstrated when you compare performance of the ATI X850XT PE at 28 to the NVIDIA 6800 Ultra and 7800GTX at about 2 points higher.
PCMark 2004 appears to slightly favor ATI video cards in their performance score, while the newest PCMark 2005 seems to be the opposite - providing better results for the NVIDIA 6800 Ultra with the 7800GTX with a substantial lead in the PCMark 2005 score.
There is little to distinguish or detract from the Sapphire ATI in General Performance benchmarks. The Sapphire board is competitive with the best Socket 939 Athlon 64 boards that we have tested.
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somu - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
only thing that i would like to know is the pricing, since its on par performance wise with the other entusiast boards, the one thing that will seperate itself will be pricing.L3p3rM355i4h - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
WTF, these aren't bartons! Props to ATi for including something that high. 4.0vdimm is good too.The white PCB is....interesting, to say the least. Just going to leave it at that. ;)
If these are actually out in Mid-October/Nov. I'm def. going to get one.
L3p3rM355i4h - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
WTF, these aren't bartons! Props to ATi for including something that high. 4.0vdimm is good too.The white PCB is....interesting, to say the least. Just going to leave it at that. ;)
If these are actually out in Mid-October/Nov. I'm def. going to get one.
erinlegault - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
I am impressed to say the least. IGP versions will be coming along with Crossfire versions. There are 4 different flavours coming and 8 if you count the addition of IGP. This may lead to a breakthrough into the OEM's. The true test will be how the intel chipset performs.Excellent job ATI!
Quiksel - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
That white mobo is supa hot. When I saw that pic, my jaw dropped. PRETTY MOBO.Too bad I'm an all-Mac shop now. I need a mobo like this in my G4. :-P
Chef Brian - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
I wanted to buy this mobo when I saw the awesome colours, but the featureset sealed the deal. If this board can overclock like it should, I will buy it without any further question. This has massive potential..fitten - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
Just think.... now if they just had a TypeR sticker on it somewhere... :rolleyes:xsilver - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
is there any mention of the price? Competitive performance at a non competitive price still means little for ATIand also the limited availability (ala rs480) might also kill some of this products hopes
hopefully though they will make a spash and give nvidia a kick in the pants to lower their prices :)
jab98 - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
Nice to finally see a amd64 board with decent quality onboard audio, wonder if anyone will revise their nf4 boards to support the better codcec?Zebo - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
I guess you missed the MSI with on-board SBlive?