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Review: AMD AM2 motherboard duel - Foxconn vs Sapphire

by Tarinder Sandhu on 2 February 2007, 08:42

Tags: Sapphire

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qahtc

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Sapphire PURE AM2RD580 BIOS



Jumping right in.

FeatureAdjustments possible
HT Reference Clock (CPU-SPP)200-440MHz (1MHz increments)
CPU FIDx4-CPU MAX. FID (x1 increments)
PCIe Clock100-200MHz (1MHz increments)
HT Multiplier (CPU-SPP)1-5x (x1 increments)
Memory clocks400/533/667/800MHz
CPU VID0.550V to CPU MAX (1.450V). 0.550V-0.7625V in 0.0125V increments. 0.7650V-1.450V in 0.05V increments
Memory VDIMM1.541V to 2.804V (0.05V/0.051V increments)
Memory VTT0.807V to 1.149V (0.013/0.014v increments)
NB and SB voltage1.143/1.201/1.260/ 1.299/1.348/1.406/1.455/1.504v
HT and PCIe Voltage1.143/1.201/1.260/1.299/1.348/1.406/1.455/1.504v


The voltage and speed options are pretty good and tweakers should be able to get the most out of their system by toggling the various options. The BIOS also features a CPU VCore offset that enables a maximum voltage of 1.9V assuming a CPU VID of 1.4V

We'd like to see higher CPU VCore and options that allow you to save the BIOS configuration into a profile. You'll see why if you take a look at the level of DRAM adjustment possible.

















You could be in there for a week! Even with this slew of options, there's no provision for manually selecting the DRAM command rate.

Summary

The BIOS is better than the reference board's and should appease all but the most hardcore enthusiast. Still, though, it's not quite as good as the nForce 590 SLI's; a chipset that the RD580 is squarely up against.