SAPPHIRE Strengthens Mainboard Offering
March 20, 2008 | 11:41
Companies: #sapphire
Following the introduction of the exciting new series of chipsets from AMD, SAPPHIRE Technology, the leading manufacturer of AMD/ATI graphics solutions has just strengthened its mainboard offering with the introduction of two new products.
New Integrated Graphics
First shown at CeBIT 2008, the SAPPHIRE PI-AM2RS780G is a fully featured yet cost effective mATX mainboard featuring the new AMD 780G chipset together with the latest SB700 south bridge and supporting the new AMD Hybrid CrossFireX Graphics mode. It supports all the Socket-940 (AM2+) compatible processors from AMD including the new Phenom series as well as Athlon 64, FX, X2 and Sempron processors. High performance can be achieved with its 2000MHz HT3 bus and support for Dual Channel DDR2 memory modules. Optimisation features are included in the BIOS settings, and the board has CPU Core Voltage control.
For the first time, the on-board graphics solution supports DX10 and delivers high performance HD graphics to both VGA and DVI connectors on the rear panel. In addition, the new Hybrid CrossFireX mode enables a SAPPHIRE HD 3400 series graphics card, plugged into the PCI-Express Gen 2.0 expansion slot, to work together with the onboard GPU using the new Hybrid CrossFireX driver and deliver considerably enhanced graphics performance. Further expansion is provided by two industry standard 32-bit PCI slots.
Fully featured I/O on board includes 6 Serial ATA Devices with RAID Support, E-IDE and Floppy disk interfaces, Gigabit LAN, 8-Channel HD Audio, up to 10 High-speed USB devices as well as headers for legacy serial and parallel ports.
New CrossFireX Support
Delivering a new generation of CrossFire capability, the SAPPHIRE PC-AM2RX780 is a new mainboard in ATX format based on the new AMD 770 Chipset and AMD SB600 south bridge. Again equipped with Socket-940 (AM2+) compatibility, the board supports AMD Phenom, Athlon 64, FX, X2, and Sempron processors. The chipset supports HT3 2000MHz Hypertransport speeds and Dual Channel DDR2 Memory DIMMs up to a total of 8GB, delivering enthusiast level performance.
On-board features include four Serial ATA Devices with RAID Support, two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 graphics expansion slots, supporting AMD CrossFireX, plus two PCI-Express x1 and two industry standard PCI slots. The extensive I/O provision includes up to 10 USB ports, Gigabit LAN, 8-Channel HD Audio I/O with Spdif, Serial and parallel port headers.
CrossFireX is a new level of support from AMD for multiple GPU solutions. With this mainboard and the latest graphics driver, cards from the SAPPHIRE HD3800 series can be used in combination to achieve enhanced graphics performance. This includes the HD 3850, HD 3870 and HD 3870 X2 (dual GPU) series, in any mix, allowing users to use 1, 2, 3 or 4 GPU’s together with CrossFireX for industry leading performance. It also supports CrossFire with two cards from earlier ATI-based graphics families.
Both new mainboards are in production now and will be available through SAPPHIRE channel and retail partners.
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