Sapphire PURE AM2RD580 specs and discussion
Specification
| Sapphire Technology AM2RD580 | |
|---|---|
| Item | Specification |
| Processor Support | All Socket AM2 processors |
| Northbridge | ATI CrossFire Xpress 3200 |
| Southbridge | ATI SB600 |
| Memory Support | 4 DIMMs, DDR2, 533/667/800, 8GiB max |
| Graphics | 2 x PCI Express Graphics x16 (x16, full-bandwidth in CrossFire), Supports ATI CrossFire multi-GPU tech., obviously |
| Additional PCI Express | 1 x PCI Express x1 |
| PCI Conventional | 1 slot, PCI2.3 |
| ATA | 1 x ATA/133 from SB600 |
| SATA | 4 SATA2 ports from SB600 4 from dual Sil3132 PCIe SATA controllers |
| RAID | 0/1/0+1/10 from SB600 0/1 from Sil3132 |
| LAN | 1 x 10/100/1000 (Marvell 88E8052 GigE Controller) |
| Audio | Realtek ALC882D HDA 7.1-channel |
| Floppy | 1 port |
| FireWire | 2 ports, FireWire400 (VIA VT6307 ) |
| USB | 10 ports, USB2.0 |
Discussion
Sapphire is the largest AIC partner of the company formerly known as ATI. As such, we'd imagine that it receives attractive pricing on GPUs and chipsets. It's opted to showcase all that's good about the CrossFire Xpress 3200 on a motherboard that's geared towards the enthusiast.
The chipset, which comprises of the Xpress 3200 northbridge and SB600 southbridge, provides full-bandwidth x16 PCIe support to a couple of ATI cards run in, you guessed it, CrossFire. Both are run off the northbridge, by the way.
Expansion-wise, there's only a single x1 PCIe slot and a further single conventional PCI, useful for soundcards and the like. The SB600 comes up a little short when compared to the very best in class; it doesn't support native networking and only has inherent support for 4 SATA ports. That's why Sapphire has opted to add in two Silicon Image SATA controllers, boosting the overall count to eight. Networking is taken care of by the all-in-one Marvell GigE PCIe controller.
The SB600 does support high-def audio and Sapphire makes good use of it by pairing up Dolby Digital-supporting Realtek's ALC882D HDA CODEC, so no complaints here.
There's FireWire support courtesy of the venerable VIA VT6307 2-port controller and the board is packed with USB2.0; 10 ports in total, although only 4 are immediately usable.
Summary
Sapphire appreciates that a motherboard which features dual x16 PCIe slots should be aimed at the enthusiast looking to for a high-end solution. That's why it has, sensibly we might add, designed a feature-rich board that has, particular, lots of storage and high-speed connectivity as standard.Let's now see how it's all presented.
