First impression aside, let’s take a real close look at the PCB design of our today’s hero. First of all I would like to say that Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 was created by ATI engineers. Sapphire was only in charge of the production and sales of this solution. So, you can consider the design of this solution also known under the codename of ATI Grouper to be reference to some extent.

Just like the best overclocking friendly mainboards designed on NVIDIA nForce4 chipset family, Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 uses 6-layer PCB. This is one of the reasons why its PCB is so complex. There are a lot of spots for different onboard controllers, and the board is loaded with lot of small package-free radio elements and electronic logics components. However, this didn’t prevent the engineers from designing a very convenient mainboard.

It is very easy to access all the major spots on Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 when it is installed into a system case. Among its advantages we should certainly mention a lot of free space next to the PCI Express x16 slot, which allows installing graphics cards equipped with massive cooling systems without “losing” any of the expansion slots. Besides, the Serial and Parallel ATA connectors are also very conveniently located.

However, the PCI design of our today’s main character has one pretty significant drawback. The components on the left side of the mainboard PCB are not too tightly packed, however, we cannot say the same about the right side, where the CPU socket, the processor voltage regulator and the DIMM slots are located. As a result, the full-size graphics card installed into the PCI Express x16 slot will block the DIMM slot clips. In fact, we could consider it a small inconvenience, especially compared with the CPU that got caught tightly “squeezed” in-between the edge of the PCB, DIMM slots and two capacitors of the MOSFET unit. This may result into numerous problems, such as inefficient heat release from the CPU cooler, or difficulties during CPU cooler installation because of lack of free space. Even if you install a regular boxed cooler, you have to turn it so that its lock is facing the side of the mainboard, otherwise the chipset heatsink will get in the way and prevent you from installing the cooler properly. This position of the CPU cooler may not be the best choice when the mainboard is installed inside the case, because in most system cases there is usually a power supply unit right at the side of the mainboard. Therefore, I suggest that you install the CPU and the cooler before you fasten the mainboard inside the system case, otherwise, you may not be able to do it at all.

All heat dissipating semiconductor elements on the mainboard are equipped with passive heatsinks. The ATI RX482 North Bridge and SB450 South Bridge equipped with the aluminum heatsinks do not heat up that much, thus they do not need active cooling at all. As for the MOSFET units, the capacitors there are either equipped with tiny heatsinks or with a one bigger heatsink covering a few elements at the same time, just like in the processor voltage regulator circuitry.

ATI RX482 North Bridge

ATI SB450 South Bridge

So, Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 is a mainboard with no moving parts, which will suit well for quiet systems, because NVIDIA nForce4 based mainboards simply cannot do without an active cooler fan on the chipset. However, if you would really want to, you can always equip the chipset heatsinks with additional fans, because there are power connectors next to both chipset Bridges.