Sapphire Pure Platinum Z77 Motherboard Final Iteration Pictured

[btarunr]

Sapphire is ready with a high-end socket LGA1155 motherboard based on Intel Z77 chipset, the Pure Platinum Z77. This is Sapphire's second Z77 motherboard disclosed so far, after the Pure Black Z77 it showed us, at CES. Sapphire is offering 3-way multi-GPU support in a very unique way. Three of its four PCI-Express x16 (long) slots are wired to the CPU, all three of them PCI-Express Gen 3.0. The topmost slot is x16 and x8 capable (x8, if any of the other two slots are populated); the middle slot is x8 and x4 capable (x4, if the bottommost blue slot is populated); while the bottommost slot is x4 capable. PCI-Express 3.0 x4 offers bandwidth comparable to PCI-Express 2.0 x8 (or PCI-Express 1.1 x16), which doesn't heavily bottleneck today's graphics cards. An ingenious slot layout, made possible by inexpensive PCIe lane switches, instead of expensive bridges.



Apart from the three Gen 3.0 slots, there's a fourth long slot (black), which is electrical PCI-Express 2.0 x4, and wired to the Z77 PCH. Two PCI-Express 2.0 x1 slots find room in the middle. The LGA1155 socket is powered by a 12-phase digital PWM power circuit. SATA connectivity on board consists of two SATA 6 Gb/s, and four SATA 3 Gb/s, there are no eSATA ports. The board doesn't have any third-party USB 3.0 controllers, and makes do with the four ports the PCH provides (two on the rear panel, two via header). 8-channel HD audio, two gigabit Ethernet interfaces, Bluetooth, and display connectivity consisting of one each DVI, D-Sub, HDMI, and DisplayPort, makes for the rest of it. There are overclocker-friendly features such as POST INT display, and dual-BIOS. Expect this board to be a part of the first wave of Z77 motherboards, probably slated for later this month.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[btarunr]

Many Thanks to NHKS for the tip.

 

[m1dg3t]

Anyone on the forum have any experience with Saphire board's? They look interesting but i'm skeptical as to their performance/durability since they are mainly a GFX card vendor. Any word on pricing for this bta?

I have almost enough extra part's laying around to build another rig and from what i saw of another Saphire board @ NCiX the pricing was excellent! Think it was like $110 or so?

 

[btarunr]

They lack SLI support. Other than that, they're solid.

 

[m1dg3t]

I don't mind that as i never run more than 1 GFX card anyways, i guess no pricing as yet?

 

[AsRock]

Nice clean looking mobo and like those heatsinks and would look even better with copper ones.. Although looks like their could be some clearance issue's

 

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

Looks like a nice board, but it needs more SATA ports.

 

[micropage7]

They lack SLI support. Other than that, they're solid.

so they reduce the points of multiple pciex slots :shadedshu

 

[illli]

seems kind of strange if this is the same company that makes AMD gpus

 

[m1dg3t]

Nice clean looking mobo and like those heatsinks and would look even better with copper ones.. Although looks like their could be some clearance issue's

All copper would look nice, i think there would be enough clearance for any HSF it look's like a pretty well laid out board IMHO

seems kind of strange if this is the same company that makes AMD gpus

Yep it's them indeed! They make good GFX card's so i don't doubt their ability but IIRC they had some problem's with MOBO's in the past. So just curious if they got their MOBO's to the same place as their GFX card's

 

[TurdFergasun]

nice board... but the spacing of the pci-e slots is terrible, the first one is good, but the second slot down from the 16x is the only other pci-e with 8x capability, how can you run two mainstream cards so close together these days? not even oem coolers would fit easily like that, the 3rd slot should be the 8x so that even 2.5 slot width coolers could reasonably fit. hopefully it's just a error with the pic, otherwise looks like the perfect board for my next system.