ATI Radeon Xpress 200P for Overclockers: Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 Mainboard Review

by Ilya Gavrichenkov
09/02/2005 | 10:27 AM

Sad as it might seem, but there are very few chipsets to choose from as far as the Socket 939 platform is concerned, even though this platform has become quite mature and popular already. Those hardware enthusiasts who decide to build a contemporary Athlon 64 platform with a PCI Express bus hardly have any choice at all. Over 95% of all mainboards for this particular platform are based on various modifications of NVIDIA nForce4 chipset. As for all other core logic developers, they failed to roll out any high-performance functional solutions for Athlon 64 platform with PCI Express bus support that could satisfy the demands of computer enthusiasts. And while NVIDIA keeps gaining more and more popularity in the high-end and mainstream mainboard chipset market, the traditional competitors, VIA and SiS, keep rolling downhill into the value segment. The only thing that keeps them afloat is probably a few successful partnerships with large OEMs and system integrators.

In fact, there are a lot of disadvantages in the upcoming NVIDIA’s monopolization of the Socket 939 chipset market. One of the major drawbacks is the price, of course. This is exactly the reason why we desperately need some other chipset solution to compete with NVIDIA’s nForce4. Unfortunately, the policy most of the Taiwanese chipset developers have been pursuing lately took this hope completely away from us.

However, things are not completely hopeless. There is one more chipset developer who has kept silent for a while. This company is a well-known Canadian graphics processors developer – ATI Technologies. To be fair I should say that ATI has been making chipsets for quite a while now. However, their solutions didn’t enjoy broad popularity among computer enthusiasts. In fact, they were simply unknown to them. And the reason for that is very simple: in the chipset business ATI preferred to focus mostly on partnerships with OEM companies, and simply ignored the DIY market. As a result, the mainboard manufacturers developed solutions based on ATI chipsets only if they received a big order from one of their OEM customers. Therefore, those mainboards that still managed to make it into the retail channel couldn’t boast any specific capabilities and features typical of the high-end enthusiast platforms.

Luckily, the time passes by and changes. It looks like ATI has decided to give up the way the used to handle the chipset business and to pay attention to the individual end-users. And this is not accidental. While NVIDIA managed to win a lot of users’ hearts due to their SLI technology that allowed using two graphics cards “in a tandem”, ATI has to introduce their own alternative aka CrossFire. However, besides special graphics cards, these technologies also require new platforms with two graphics interfaces onboard. That is why the announcement of SLI and CrossFire technologies was loudly accompanied by the launches of chipsets and mainboards capable of working with two graphics cards at a time. Of course, the primary target for SLI and CrossFire technologies is the extreme gaming segment. And extreme gamers are typical representatives of the overclocking enthusiasts group. This is exactly the reason why ATI has changed its priorities in the chipset development and marketing and decided to pay attention to the hardcore user segment.

The first ATI chipset to become the basis for the new mainboard formation is Radeon Xpress 200P. This set of core logic also well-known under the codename of RX480, has been available in the market for quite a while already. However, the first mainboards for gaming systems based on this chipset will start appearing in the market only this fall. This way, ATI Radeon Xpress 200P will be reborn this fall as a high-end chipset. In this article we are going to take a closer look at this solution to find out how attractive it is going to be in its new incarnation.

So, the main topic on our today’s agenda is: ATI Radeon Xpress 200P as a competitor to NVIDIA nForce4.

ATI Radeon Xpress 200P for AMD Platform: Closer Look

Since NVIDIA nForce4 chipset turned into a sort of a reference for the AMD K8 platform, it is impossible to avoid comparing any new product against the solution from NVIDIA. This time is also not an exception: we perceive the ATI Radeon Xpress 200P as opposed to nForce4. And to tell the truth, its features don’t look that impressive against this powerful background.

First of all I would like to point out that ATI Radeon Xpress 200P is a chipset based on classical architecture, including the North and the South Bridge. While NVIDIA nForce4 proved the efficiency of the single-chip architecture for Athlon 64 platform, all other developers, including ATI continue to stick with the traditional dual-chip design. And I completely understand their motivation. When all the peripheral devices controllers are combined in a single isolated chip, the developer gets more flexibility for further chipset enhancement and fine tuning. By simply replacing one single core logic chip, they can enrich the chipset functionality and also add support for the new/different processors.

I would like to stress that this opportunity is very important for ATI. The company has always had some trouble with developing high-quality and feature-rich South Bridges. ATI replaces them with the new modifications much more frequently than the North Bridges, because of numerous improvements they introduce and small bugs they eliminate.

Moreover, there is a well-known PCI Express x2 bus with 1GB/s bandwidth connecting the chipset bridges in ATI Radeon Xpress 200P. By using this popular bus to connect the chipset bridges with one another, ATI automatically allows the use of South Bridges from other chipset developers. It is not a rare thing today that the mainboard developers would use ATI North Bridge together with a more functional South Bridge from ULi, for instance.

The North Bridge of ATI Radeon Xpress 200P chipset aka RX480 (the latest modification is called RX482) boasts a pretty common set of features typical of an Athlon 64 platform. It supports HyperTransport bus with up to 1GHz frequency connecting it with the system CPU and a PCI Express bus connecting it with the additional devices. ATI Radeon Xpress 200P North Bridge features 22 PCI Express lanes. Two of them are assigned for the connection with the South Bridge, four of them are responsible for PCI Express x1 slots. As a result there are 16 lanes left for the graphics interface, which can be used either by a single PCI Express x16 graphics bus or by two PCI Express x8 graphics buses simultaneously. The latter configuration is implemented in the Crossfire based systems with two graphics cards.

ATI recommends a few chips to be used as South Bridges in combination with their Radeon Xpress 200P North Bridge. The most up-to-date one of them is ATI SB450. This chip will most likely be used for overclocker’s platforms based on ATI Radeon Xpress 200P. Therefore everything we are going to say next will refer primarily to this particular South Bridge chip. However, I wouldn’t exclude the possibility of ULi M1575 chipset becoming the choice for overclocker mainboards as well. Although in this case, we will definitely offer you another article covering the peculiarities of the other South Bridge chip in greater detail.

Those users who have already got used to the rich features of NVIDIA nForce4, may be not that excited about the ATI SB450 South Bridge. This microchip cannot boast anything remarkable. It supports USB 2.0 interface, features a Serial ATA RAID controller, PCI bus and AC97 sound. Note that the Serial ATA RAID controller integrated into the ATI SB450 supports 4 Serial ATA-I channels with 1.5Gbit/s bandwidth (Serial ATA-II is not supported) and doesn’t allow building RAID 0+1 and RAID 5 arrays. The only real strength of SB450 against the competitor’s background is the integrated sound solutions, no matter how strange it might seem. This sound solution supports High Definition Audio, which NVIDIA nForce4 doesn’t have.

We are going to dwell more on the individual components of ATI Radeon Xpress 200P later in this review when we talk about the actual mainboard based on it. Here I would like to offer you a side by side comparison of the major features of ATI Radeon Xpress 200P and NVIDIA nForce4:

In addition to pretty scarce list of ATI Radeon Xpress 200P capabilities given in the table I would like to add that ATI doesn’t provide any brand name utilities or tools for work with the chipset hardware features, unlike NVIDIA. So at first glance ATI Radeon Xpress 200P doesn’t look too impressive against the competitor’s background.

However, this is definitely a way too early for conclusions. Especially since a lot depends on the price and on the real products based on this chipsets. That is why we decided to continue our investigation with a detailed study of the first mainboard for computer enthusiasts based on ATI Radeon Xpress 200P chipset – Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480.

Specification and Package

Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 mainboard arrived at our lab in a very unusual package. It was packed into a box with a transparent plastic window and a flip-cover. Inside the plastic container there was the mainboard with all the accessories.

I would like to draw your attention to the photo of the mainboard on the inside of the cover. The remarkable thing about this photo is that the mainboard there features a lot of additional controllers. In reality the Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 mainboard we had doesn’t have all of those chips from the marketing picture. There are empty spots on the white mainboard PCB where these controllers are intended to be.

To specify from the very beginning the features list supported by this mainboard we would like to offer you its official technical briefs:

Besides the components I have just mentioned, the mainboard also have a spot for an additional Serial ATA II controller and for a POST controller. So, I dare assume that one day we will also see more advanced solutions based on the Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 mainboard we are reviewing today.

As for the accessories bundled with the mainboard, they are not impressively rich, too. Besides the actual mainboard, you also find the following accessories in the box:

• A CD disc with the standard set of drivers and utilities;
• One Serial ATA cable;
• One 80-pin Parallel ATA cable and FDD cable;
• Case bracket with one FireWire port;
• Case bracket with a coaxial SPDIF In and Out;
• I/O shield for the case rear panel;
• User’s guide.

Again, I have to admit that this is not enough for an enthusiastic mainboard. I was especially frustrated about the few cables Sapphire enclosed with the board. Only one Serial ATA cable and the total absence of additional USB brackets will hardly be acceptable for a high-end platform. Anyway, Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 is not yet shipping in mass quantities, so I think the manufacturer still has time to improve a few things.

Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 Mainboard: Closer Look

It is not an easy task to design a high-end mainboard on ATI Radeon Xpress 200P chipset. From the supported features point of view, this baby would be closer to the budget segment. Mostly due to the anachronistic SB450 South Bridge, its features list is close to that of budget solutions from SiS and VIA. Therefore, the mainboard maker had to integrate quite a few additional controllers onto the PCB in order to make Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 look like a high-end solution.

Nevertheless, chipset is still the one that determines all major mainboard functions. Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 supports all Socket 939 processors including Athlon 64, Athlon 64 FX and dual-core Athlon 64 X2. Of course, the mainboard supports DDR SDRAM, which should be used in dual-channel configurations for maximum performance. There are 4 184-pin DDR DIMM slots on the board. However, despite the good tradition to make the slots belonging to the same memory channel of the same color, these slots are not color coded. So, you will have to take a look at the user’s guide to make sure that the memory modules are installed correctly.

There is a PCI Express x16 graphics card slot on the PCB. This mainboard modification doesn’t support CrossFire technology, however, in the near future Sapphire PURE Innovation product line is going to have solutions supporting two ATI graphics cards at the same time.

Besides the PCI Express x16 slot, there are four more expansion slots on the board: two PCI Express x1 slots and two regular PCI slots. I cannot say that I was impressed with the number of expansion slots onboard, however since the mainboard is equipped with a full set of integrated controllers, the available slots should be more than enough in most configurations.

As for the basic characteristics of Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480, there are no questions here. However, when it comes to the functions implemented via the additional onboard controllers and the chipset South Bridge, the situation is no longer so simple.

First of all I would like to pay special attention to the Serial ATA RAID controllers integrated into the chipset South Bridge. According to the specification, ATI Radeon Xpress 200P chipset supports 4 Serial ATA-I channels and allows building RAID 0 and RAID 1 arrays. In reality, ATI gave up the development of their own Serial ATA controller and asked Silicon Image for help. As a result, SB450 South Bridge contains two integrated SiI3132 controllers, which for some reason do not support Serial ATA-II.

There are several inconveniences resulting from this. Firstly, we get no support for RAID 0+1 arrays. Secondly, RAID arrays can only be built from the drives that are connected to the neighboring channels, such as 1 and 2, or 3 and 4 belonging to the same controller. Thirdly, you will need a floppy disk with drivers for Windows XP and a floppy drive if you decide to use SiI3132 in RAID mode, because this is not a native controller.

In order to make our final conclusion about the efficiency of the Serial ATA controller integrated into the SB450 chipset South Bridge, we resorted to FutureMark PCMark05 benchmark suite. The tests were performed for a single Raptor WD360GD hard disk drive as well as for a RAID 0 array made of two HDDs like that. We compared the results with the performance of corresponding disk subsystems built on NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra based platform.

In case our controller worked as a regular Serial ATA controller the results were as follows:

In RAID 0 mode we obtained the following results:

In both cases Serial ATA RAID controller of NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra proved faster than the controller of ATI Radeon Xpress 200P chipset. So, we can state that the Serial ATA implementation in ATI SB450 cannot boast high speed, too. In fact, we were not surprised with the obtained results. During our previous tests of NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra based mainboards we saw evident proof that the integrated RAID controller of this chipset was highly efficient due to its hardware peculiarities as well as due to quality buffering in the drivers. Moreover, you should also keep in mind that NVIDIA also offers very convenient RAID array management tools. Unfortunately, ATI doesn’t offer anything like that so far.

Since ATI Radeon Xpress 200P doesn’t support Serial ATA-II standard, while the first hard disk drives are already appearing in the market, Sapphire added an additional onboard controller supporting this new bus. It’s ironical that this controller appeared to be the same SiI3132 connected to the PCI Express x1 bus. This controller implements two additional Serial ATA-II ports on the board, which also support RAID 0 and 1 arrays.

Another weak spot of the Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 mainboard is its USB 2.0 controller. The users used to be unhappy about the implementation of the USB ports in the previous version of the Radeon Xpress 200P South Bridge, ATI SB400, since these ports worked at a notably lower speed than the ports on other systems. The mainboard we are reviewing today uses a newer South Bridge, SB450, where ATI was supposed to eliminate this drawback. Let’s see if they did it or not.

We measured the USB bus bandwidth on our Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 mainboard and CPU utilization when there is data transferred to and from the external USB 2.0 Maxtor OneTouch 250GB HDD. For our tests we used AIDA32 utility. We will compare the obtained results with those obtained on an NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra based system.

It is very sad but it turns out that the USB 2.0 ports supported by the ATI Radeon Xpress 200P chipset work almost twice as slow as the same ports in the competing products. As a result, the Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 mainboard is not free from this drawback, too.

Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 has all the 8 ports supported by the ATI Radeon Xpress 200P chipset: four ports are laid out on the mainboard rear panel, and another four ports are implemented as onboard pin-connectors on the PCB. Unfortunately, there are no brackets for the case rear panel with additional USB ports in the accessories bundled with the mainboard. That is why two USB pin-connectors remain free when the system is put together and can be connected to the case front-panel USB ports, if there are any available.

Even though the USB 2.0 and Serial ATA RAID controllers of our mainboards didn’t prove up to our expectations, we wouldn’t say anything like that about the integrated sound solution. It turned out highly functional, boasted High Definition Audio support and showed very good performance during our tests.

The sound tract of the Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 mainboard is implemented with the Realtek ALC880 codec. This eight-channel codec provides 192kHz/24-bit sound quality and boasts very good theoretical signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of -100dB. There are six audio-jack connectors on the mainboard rear panel. Besides, the mainboard is supplied with an additional bracket featuring coaxial SPDIF In and Out ports. This audio solution also supports Universal Audio Jack.

During our practical tests the sound system of the Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 mainboard received the following scores:

General performance: Very good

High quality sound implementation on this mainboard is proven by our practical tests.

Moreover, the integrated sound of Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 is excellent not only in its analog implementation. During our test session we also noticed that the CPU utilization remained really low during sound playback. Here are the results obtained in 3DMark03 sound test, for instance:

As we see, ATI SB450 and Realtek ALC880 load the CPU less than NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra with a typical sound solution for this chipset - Realtek ALC850.

Now that we have discussed the peculiarities of the controllers integrated into the chipset South Bridge, let’s pass over to those external onboard controllers that are available on Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 PCB.

First of all, let’s say a few words about the network controller. Socket 939 mainboards usually have the logical part of their network controller integrated into the chipset. However, on Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 it is not exactly like that. ATI Radeon Xpress 200P chipset doesn’t support any networking features at all that is why the manufacturer implemented the network interface via a stand-alone Marvel Yukon 88E8052 controller. It is a gigabit controller connected to the PCI Express x1 bus. As a result, this chip can run at up to 1Gbit/s speed not only in theory, but also in real life.

Let’s see how fast this controller is compared with an integrated network controller of NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra chipset. Here we used NTttcp utility from Microsoft Windows NT DDK. To make it all fair, we disabled NVIDIA Firewall 2.0, because it may lay additional workload on the CPU. Here are the obtained results:

AA = Active Armor

With the frames of standard length, marvel Yukon 88E8052 performs quite well, yielding to NVIDIA nForce4 only in the CPU utilization test. However once we switch to Jumbo frames (Ethernet packets increased to 9,000 bytes), this controller start losing to NVIDIA nForce4 dramatically fast, with the bandwidth dropping far below the theoretical value.

In conclusion to our discussion of the mainboard features I would like to say that due to VIA VT6307 controller Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 mainboard has two IEEE1394a ports with the 400Mbit/s bandwidth. One of the ports is laid out on the mainboard rear panel, and another one is implemented as an onboard pin-connector. A corresponding bracket with the additional port is included into the accessories bundle.

PCB Design

The PCB design of Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 mainboard is also as ambiguous as its features. In the first place I should definitely say a few great words about the exterior looks of this product. The mainboard manufacturers have always tried to surprise us with the PCB colors of their solutions. However, we have never come a cross a mainboard of the same color as Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480. So, Sapphire definitely wins a point for highly original and unique color design and creativity. Their Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 is white.

All the notes on the PCB are made in red, and the connectors and slots on the PCB are red, too. So, even the color of the board indicates what camp it belongs to: ATI. The bottom side of the PCB is as patriotic as its front: it is white with a big red logo pf the manufacturers.

Since we started with the looks, it would be nice to mention that the mainboard carries a few red LEDs onboard, too, which light up when the board is working. The board is equipped with LEDs signaling if there is power when the board is on, and five LEDs indicating activity of different ATA channels. Besides, there are another five LEDs next to the processor Socket 939, which light up according to the VID bits status setting the nominal CPU voltage during system operation. Besides the aesthetic looks, these LEDs will make it very easy to indicate when the CPU has gone into a power saving work mode activated by Cool’n’Quiet technology.

So, Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 looks very nice when it is working.

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.

For your convenience there are two micro-buttons in the lower left corner of the mainboards PCB: Reset and Power On. These buttons repeat the functions of the corresponding case buttons that you connect to the board when assembling the system inside a system case, however, if you are using the board in an open stand, like we did, these buttons help a lot.

The processor voltage regulator on Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 deserves our special attention. First of all, I would like to stress that it doesn’t use the additional 4-pin 12V power connector. Although this connector is laid out on the mainboard next to the CPU voltage regulator unit, it is not necessary to plug a cable into it. The mainboard runs perfectly well and stable when powered by only one main 24-pin ATX power cable.

The voltage regulator itself is designed following the four-channel schematics. All MOSFETs included into this circuitry are located as a 4x4 matrix and are cooled down with a special aluminum heatsink. Note that this mainboard can monitor the thermal status of the power converter with the help of a special thermal diode located in the middle of the transistor matrix.

They used electrolytic capacitors from three manufacturers: SANYO, Nichicon and TEAPO. The first two names have been long known as high-quality component makers, however, the last one used to deliver capacitors of not very reliable quality and not very long life-time. Today TEAPO claims that there are no problems with the quality of their electronic components any more. However, during our stress-tests one of Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 mainboard failed for this particular reason: the capacitor dies when the board was running with a Venice based CPU overclocked to 2.8GHz. So, I would doubt the absolute reliability of the processor voltage regulator on this mainboard.

In conclusion, I would like to say a few words about the mainboard back panel, where all the ports and connectors are. The thing is that Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 doesn’t have a standard back panel design. I would even call this design kind of strange. The thing is that almost half of the available space is not used at all, however, the mainboard doesn’t have any Parallel or Serial ports. There are only PS/2 connectors for the keyboard and mouse, four High Speed USB ports, RJ45 network connector with the diagnostic LEDs, six audio-jacks, and one IEEE1394 port. You can add a few more ports by installing the brackets that go with the board, and this will bring you a coaxial SPDIF In and Out as well as one more FireWire port.

BIOS and Overclocking

Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 mainboard was tested with the latest BIOS we had at the time of our test session. The BIOS version dated back to August 19 2005.

The BIOS of Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 mainboard is based on standard Award Phoenix microcode and doesn’t have any special treats at first glance. However, this is only the first impression. The engineers decided not to change the BIOS Setup interface that much and didn’t add any brand name technologies of doubtful meaning. Instead they did their best to make sure that the user can access all the features of the system components through BIOS Setup. We consider it to be an absolutely correct and efficient approach. This is exactly what all overclockers want the BIOS to be like.

When we studied the Setup of Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 mainboard, we recalled our experience with the overclockers’ favorite DFI LANParty UT NF4 Ultra-D, for instance. The thing is that Sapphire’s mainboard boasts the same rich set of adjustable options, if not more. The memory configuring page and processor configuring page contain the fullest list of options, which is precisely what overclocker’s look for.

There is the whole page devoted solely to memory overclocking and configuring. It is DRAM Configuration page, where you can adjust a great variety of parameters and not just the major timing settings.

I have every right to state that the BIOS Setup of our mainboard is as functional as the popular A64 Tweaker utility.

As for the CPU overclocking options, there is the whole bunch of then, too:

• The frequency of the clock generator forming the CPU frequency can be adjusted from 200 to 440MHz with 1MHz increment;
• The frequency of the PCI Express bus can be independently adjusted from 100 to 200MHz with 1MHz increment;
• The CPU frequency multiplier can be adjusted manually (reduced below the nominal value). The minimal value is 4x;
• The parameters responsible for the working frequency and width of the HyperTransport bus can also be adjusted. The frequency of this bus is set with a multiplier (to the clock generator frequency), which can be set to 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, and 5x. The width of the bus can be set to 8 or 16 bits in any direction.
• The VID bits of the processor can also be adjusted, so that the CPU voltage can be increased from 0.8 V up to 1.55V with 0.025V increment. Besides that there is a setting that allows increasing the Vcore by up to 0.6V (with 0.02V increment). In other words, the maximum CPU Vcore you can set on this mainboard is 2.15V;
• The memory voltage can be selected manually: from 2.6 to 4.0V with 0.05V increment. Besides that you can also use a special setting to correct the Vmem (up or down) by up to 10.2%;
• The chipset voltage can be increased from the default 1.22V to 1.32V, 1.4V or 1.5V;
• The voltage on the HyperTransport bus can be increased from the nominal 1.22V to 1.29V, 1.39V or 1.5V;
• The PCI Express bus voltage can also be adjusted. You can increase the nominal voltage of 1.2V up to 1.5V, and the nominal 1.8V – to 1.9V with 0.1V increment.

If this is not an ideal list of settings, then it is really close to that. All these settings available and working flawlessly can make Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 into a real overclocker’s dream. Really, how many Socket 939 mainboards have you see that allow increasing the processor Vcore up to 2.15V and have the memory work at 4V at the same time?

However, this is not the end of the list yet. Besides that, the mainboard also provides means for dynamic CPU overclocking. And unlike many other mainboards, Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 allows changing the parameters of this overclocking procedure. Namely it allows changing the increments of the CPU frequency increase and setting the CPU temperatures when automatic overclocking is acceptable. This technology together with Cool’n’Quiet allow controlling the CPU working frequency in an intellectual way depending on the CPU temperature and utilization.

All in all, the designers of Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 did a great job on the mainboard BIOS. However, they still forgot about one very important thing, unfortunately. The mainboard cannot clear all the CPU and memory settings to their default values in case of over-overclocking. In other words, if your system wouldn’t boot after another extreme overclocking attempt, the only way to resolve the issue will be the Clear CMOS jumper. Even though this jumper is located in an easy-to-reach place on the PCB, I don’t think you will be excited about opening the case every time you need to reset the settings to defaults.

Under the great impression by the variety of overclocking friendly options available in the BIOS Setup of the Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 mainboard we got down to practical tests. First of all, I tried to enable dynamic overclocking. However, it turned out that this feature didn’t work yet in the BIOS version we had at that time. In fact, the company representatives assured us that the new BIOS versions will have dynamic overclocking feature working just fine.

To tell the truth, we didn’t get that much upset about the absence of dynamic overclocking at that point. A true overclocker will not use an option like that anyway. It was much more interesting to see how the mainboard would do during manual overclocking. During our experiments we will try to find that top clock generator frequency when the product remains stable. During our experiments we used Athlon 64 3800+ on Venice core (working at the nominal 2.4GHz) with the clock multiplier reduced to 6x from the very beginning. The memory frequency was reduced to the guaranteed level, so that it didn’t hinder our overclocking experiments.

We managed to raise the clock generator frequency to 245MHz in no time with 5x HyperTransport multiplier. This frequency is comparable with what we would obtain during overclocking on NVIDIA nForce4 based mainboards. Since the lower HyperTransport frequency usually allows increasing the mainboards overclocking potential, we reduced the corresponding multiplier accordingly.

Once the HyperTransport multiplier was set to 4x, we managed to reach the frequency of 306MHz on the clock generator. It is an excellent result. NVIDIA nForce4 based mainboard usually give in even before they reach this point. However, we couldn’t stop and we continued.

Having set the HyperTransport multiplier to 3x, the mainboard’s potential grew even greater and we could hit the 340MHz frequency on the clock generator. And this value indicates that the mainboard remains very stable at high clock generator frequencies, which is certainly good.

I have to say that Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 overclocked not any worse than most of NVIDIA nForce4 based mainboards we have already tested in our lab.

Here are the results we obtained on Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 throughout this test session:

After our successful experiments with raising the clock generator frequency, we decided to simply overclock our test CPU. The CPU cooling was provided by the regular AVC Z7U7414001 air cooler. The memory we used was Corsair CMX512-3200XLPRO on Samsung TCCD chips.

During this overclocking test se set the CPU clock frequency multiplier to its nominal value, but raised the Vcore to 1.55V. In these conditions we managed to overclock the CPU easily up to the same level as we could do with other mainboards. The results look as follows: clock generator frequency reached 240MHz, CPU frequency grew to 2.88GHz, the memory frequency was 206MHz with 9:10 divider.

At that point we were almost ready to state that there are no hidden traps in overclocking done with Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 platform. However, we were pretty puzzled with what happened next. During our stability test of the overclocked system, which we performed with Prime95 utility, the system suddenly shut down. And it wouldn’t boot again, no matter what we did. The verdict was: mainboard death.

Luckily there was another Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 we had at our disposal at that time, so we could continue our tests, however, there were more consequences to this dramatic failure. Our investigation revealed that the mainboard died because of the failed capacitor in the CPU voltage regulator unit. We sent the mainboard back to Sapphire for further examination, but nothing could help our poor CPU at that point. It rested in piece, too.

This unpleasant incident saddened the overall impression left by the incredible list of overclocking friendly options and our excellent experimental results. Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 mainboard is designed specifically for overclockers. It suits perfectly for CPU overclocking. However, we have some concerns about the CPU voltage regulator. We only hope that we were simply unlucky this time, and that this is not a typical problem of this model.

In conclusion a few words about monitoring. The mainboard allows controlling seven voltages, three temperatures and rotation speed of one fan. Unfortunately, there are no tools to manage the CPU fan rotation speed, and this is a serious drawback of Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 from our standpoint.

However, there is one more comment about hardware monitoring features. For some reason the mainboard we had didn’t have any tools for monitoring the CPU temperature. The mainboard allows controlling the temperature of the CPU voltage regulator, North Bridge and the “internal environment” temperature inside the case. The processor thermal diode serves only to protect the CPU against overheating, and doesn’t report any temperature values during operation, which is very likely to upset a lot of hardware enthusiasts.

Software

When NVIDIA launched their nForce4 chipset, they paid special attention to its support on the software side. Therefore, Socket 939 users have already got used to receiving the whole bunch of different utilities, such as nTune, nvMixer, nvRAID and Network Access Manager together with the mainboard. ATI is not NVIDIA. The chipset developer didn’t offer anything to bundle with their Radeon Xpress 200P chipset. Sapphire also decided not to spend time on any special software goodies. As a result, Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 doesn’t have any special utilities for hardware management.

Testbed Configuration

We would like to wind up our review of Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 mainboard with the detailed performance tests. We decided to compare this mainboard against one of the most popular solutions on NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra – DFI LANParty UT NF4 Ultra-D. This comparison will allow us to make our final verdict about the relative performance of ATI Radeon Xpress 200P and the mainboard based on it we have been discussing today.

So, here is the hardware we used to assemble our testbeds:

• AMD Athlon 64 3800+ CPU (Venice, 2.4GHz, 512KB L2).
• Mainboards:
• DFI LANParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra);
• Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 (ATI Radeon Xpress 200P).
• 1024MB DDR400 SDRAM (Corsair CMX512-3200XLPRO, 2 x 512MB, 2-2-2-10).
• PowerColor RADEON X850 XT graphics card.
• Western Digital Raptor WD740GD (SATA150) HDD.

All tests were run in Microsoft Windows XP SP2.

Performance

In terms of performance Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 didn’t work wonders. This solution based on ATI Radeon Xpress 200P chipset proved to be as fast as NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra based mainboards we tested. In fact, this is a pretty natural result, as a chipset can hardly have that much of a negative influence on the performance of AMD Athlon 64 processor since the memory controller is embedded into the CPU.

Conclusion

Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 left very ambiguous impression. On the one hand, this is the first Socket 939 mainboard for computer enthusiasts based on an ATI chipset. And it is really great that there is finally some competition to NVIDIA in this market, it will make things a lot more interesting. From this standpoint Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 gets our hand.

On the other hand, we didn’t manage to find any evident advantages of this mainboard over the solutions on NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra: neither in terms of functionality, nor in terms of performance. Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 doesn’t outperform its rivals. Moreover, it yields to them in a few things. In particular, this mainboard features slower USB 2.0 bus and less efficient Serial ATA RAID controllers, and lacks rich networking capabilities.

At the same time, Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 boasts one great advantage: outstanding list of CPU overclocking features and great overclocking potential. But even if we disregard the issues we experienced with the CPU voltage regulator, we cannot announce this mainboard a potential hit. It is because of its price.

The mainboard should start selling in September for about $170 a piece. So, as you may see the price is set at a high-end level, although not all the specs can be regarded as high-end, as we have just found out. I don’t think there will be too many people willing to get this pretty interesting solution at such a high price.

Highs:

• Excellent overclocking friendly options and good overclocking potential;
• Very rich memory controller settings;
• Stylish exterior;
• Use of passive heatsinks only;
• High-quality sound solution supporting High Definition Audio.

Lows:

• Too high price;
• No RAID 0+1 support;
• No CPU temperature monitoring;
• No tools for the management of CPU fan rotation speed depending on the CPU temperature;
• Slow USB 2.0;
• Scarce accessories bundle;
• Some design flaws.