Sapphire 790GX mobo integrates Crossfire

SAPPHIRE Technology has released a mainboard based on the latest 790GX chipset from AMD. The board supports the full range of AMD Athlon, Phenom and Phenom ll processor with Hybrid graphics or full CrossFire X graphics.

The Pure Crossfire 790GX is a fully featured mainboard in standard ATX format combining the AMD 790GX chipset and AMD SB750 south bridge. Four DIMM slots support up to 16GB of Dual Channel DDR2 1066/800 memory and there is an integrated 128MBit DDR2 sideport memory. The integrated high speed 3GB/s SATA hard drive interface caters for up to six devices with optional RAID functions, and there is also an Ultra DMA IDE connector. On board features include GigaBit LAN and 8-channel HD Audio as well as support for up to 12 USB 2.0/1.1 devices.

The board uses high-polymer solid electrolysis aluminium capacitors with extended operating temperature range for high reliability. The advance power control on this mainboard uses a special 6+1 PWM design and provides stable operation for all the latest AMD processor families. The AM2+ socket is compatible with all the AMD Athlon, Phenom and Phenom ll processors, including the forthcoming AM3 series. For the enthusiast a special section in the BIOS allows for CPU and memory clocks, timings and voltages to be tuned for extra performance.

The integrated graphics are reckoned to be equivalent to an ATI 3000 series graphics card, for which clock speeds can be separately tuned.

The on board UVD decodes BluRay and HD DVD content with low CPU loading. DVI, VGA and HDMI outputs are provided on the backplate.

The on-board graphics can be used by itself, or together with an appropriate add-in graphics card in Hybrid CrossFire mode for extra performance. Alternatively the two 16-lane PCI Express 2.0 slots can be used for high end graphics cards either singly or in Crossfire. Two additional PCI Express x1 slots and two PCI slots provide additional expansion capability. µ