Sapphire PURE Innovation - ATI's Chipset for the AMD Enthusiast
by Wesley Fink on July 29, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Test Setup
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor(s): | AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (2.4GHz) Socket 939 |
| RAM: | 2 x 512MB OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 |
| Hard Drive(s): | Seagate 120GB 7200 RPM SATA (8MB Buffer) |
| Video AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers: | ATI Catalyst Platform 5.7 |
| Video Cards: | ATI X850XT PE NVIDIA 6800 Ultra MSI NVIDIA 7800GTX |
| Video Drivers: | ATI Catalyst 5.7 NVIDIA nForce 77.79 |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP2 Direct X 9.0c |
| Motherboards: | Sapphire PURE Innovation (ATI RX480/SB450) ULi AP9567A (M1695/M1567) Abit An8 Fatal1ty Biostar NF4UL-A9 Chaintech VNF4-Ultra DFI LANParty UT nF4 Ultra-D ECS KN1 Extreme Epox 9NPA+ Ultra Winfast NF4UK8AA (Foxconn) Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI MSI K8N Neo4/SLI Platinum |
Tests used OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2, which uses Samsung TCCD chips. All memory ran at 2-2-2-7 timing in all benchmarks.
We tested with our standard NVIDIA 6800 Ultra to allow the best comparisons to benchmark results with other motherboards. To demonstrate performance with various current video options, we also tested with the ATI X850XT PE and the MSI NVIDIA 7800GTX. Resolution in all benchmarks is 1280x1024x32 unless otherwise noted.
Results for the Sapphire ATI with the ATI X850 XT PE are color-coded red in all graphs; results for the Sapphire ATI/NVIDIA 6800 Ultra are in orange; and, Sapphire ATI/MSI NVIDIA 7800 GTX are in gold. Results for the other boards, all tested with the NVIDIA 6800 Ultra, are color-coded blue.
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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.