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: Sapphire PURE Innovation
| Sapphire PURE Innovation | |
| Overclocking Testbed | |
| Processor: | Athlon 64 4000+ (2.4GHz, 1MB Cache) |
| CPU Voltage: | 1.525V (default 1.50V) |
| Cooling: | Thermaltake Silent Boost K8 Heatsink/Fan |
| Power Supply: | OCZ Power Stream 520W |
| Memory: | OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 (Samsung TCCD Memory Chips) |
| Hard Drive: | Seagate 120GB 7200RPM SATA 8MB Cache |
| Maximum OC: (Standard Ratio) |
245x12 (4x HT, 2.5-3-3-10) 2940MHz (+22.5%) |
| Maximum FSB: (Lower Ratio) |
302 x 9 (3x HT, 1T) (2718MHz, 2 DIMMs in DC mode) (+51% Bus Overclock) |
We have rarely tested a board with such incredible stability in overclocking as this Sapphire ATI. It was not always easy to reach our desired overclock with all of the exceptional range of options available in BIOS, but once we reached the overclock, it was extremely stable. We did notice that the Sapphire ATI responds best to gradual increases in overclocking - it does not like, for example, to be set directly to 245 clock frequency. It will reach higher overclocks if the Clock frequency is increased gradually instead of in one fell swoop.
The Sapphire ATI reached a new record with our standard 4000+ Clawhammer. The highest previous overclock at stock multiplier was 242, but the Grouper went on to a stable 245. This would be quite an accomplishment for any board, but it is remarkable for a first production board. The 302 Maximum bus frequency was also a great performance. ATI clearly set out to build an enthusiast board for Sapphire that other manufacturers could copy down to the smallest detail. Sapphire was smart enough to recognize a good thing when they saw it and they have faithfully reproduced the original Reference board. Our advice to most manufacturers developing ATI Radeon Xpress 200 designs would be to copy the Reference Design. Unless you are certain that you can extract even more performance from this chipset, it is best to copy the top-performing Xpress 200 Reference boards - whether single-GPU or Crossfire Dual-GPU.
At settings of 2T, we could reach even higher to a frequency of 320. There is a lot of discussion on the web these days, claiming that you can minimize the impact of the 2T setting with certain options on Revision E AMD processors. We did not verify this claim in our tests with an earlier standard Clawhammer processor, but we can tell you that all the talk about options for improving 2T performance modes are in the memory timings section. It is little touches like this that tell us that enthusiasts in ATI or Sapphire or outside the company have had a big hand in the design of the Radeon Xpress 200 family of chipsets.
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afrost - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
One of the big things for me is that there is only passive cooling on the motherboard without the need for crazy heatpipes etc. This is really important for those of us who want to build silent computers.I'v definately picking up this board from Saphire.
Zebo - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
Good point must run at lower temp than nvidia's single chipset solution which gets hot as hell when you start cranking HTT.rjm55 - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
We mentioned several times in the article that Sapphire will launch the new board in early August. Sapphire has confirmed their plans to launch around August 5. Sapphire has asked us to pass on that you will be able to buy retail PI-A9RX480 motherboards in most markets by August 15th-20th. Price will be "competetive with nForce4".Resh - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
Any idea on when we will see them? I'd really like to go that route, but I can't wait forever!Wesley Fink - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
Halibut (Crossfire AMD) and Stingray (Crossfire Intel) boards are ready to go to reviewers, but there are still some decisions being made at ATI. We have also seen the prototype retail boards from Gigabyte and another manufacturer. When ATI decides whether Crossfire will be now or with R520 (just a guess at events) Crossfire will roll out quickly.Resh - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
Thansk Wesley. I wish they would hurry up with that decision... RAM is ordered and PSU, CPU, and X800XL will be ordered this w/e, too, so they better get the motherboards out!If you do hear something, please share it with the rest of us.
N
coomar - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
wow the white pcb stands out, at least the thing is packaged wellDhaval00 - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
A week ago, AT was having fun posting such rumors... I am sure it thinks otherwise now :)./me feels like getting rid of all my nVIDIA hardware.
ukDave - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
Typo on Pg8, second bottom paragraph. "ATI X350XT PE" - the '3' should be an '8' me thinks.Tommouse - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
Nice board. Still undecided on the white color though.I wonder if the Zalman CNPS7700-Cu will fit :|