ATIs AMD platform does deliveer - Anandtech's preview

W

wizzackr

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
May 5, 2000
Messages
1,579
You can find the review of the Sapphire PURE PI-A9RX480 245.here

If you look at the benchmarks and keep in mind it is early hardware, I must say I am surprised! Heck, since when do you read this concerning pre-production ATI mainboards:

"We have rarely tested a board with such incredible stability in overclocking as this Sapphire ATI.(...) The Sapphire ATI reached a new record with our standard 4000+ Clawhammer. The highest previous overclock at stock multiplier was 242, but the Grouper went on to a stable"

"The Reference boards are the best and most stable that we have ever tested from an overclocker's perspective,..."

"One area would be features. ATI's performance in IDE, SATA, and SATA2 (with the Sil3132) is exemplary. We have often seen new chipsets where storage performance is much worse than the current best. Considering the newest versions of the ATI Radeon Xpress X200 family with the SB450 South Bridge, this certainly does not appear to be the case. Storage performance is excellent compared to any of the leaders."

"the ATI is the first AMD chipset to market with Azalia High-Definition audio. Azalia HD exhibited low overhead in all audio modes, and most important, the sound quality is stunning compared to the majority of audio codecs currently residing on AMD motherboards."

WTF?!? :p

USB2 performance is still crap though... Still, it looks like we do have a worthy competitor to nForce4 boards after all. I wonder what the Intel solution looks like. Now we need some hardcore site putting the board through their tests and see what it really can do. :D
 
wow, i am impressed, i was planning on getting the DFI crossfire board when it came out but seeing this review really messed up those plans, now i have to do a better comparison.

When it comes to USB performance sucking, well the fact that the only thing I use usb for is my Joystick, mouse & keyboard, maybe a USB jumpdrive does not have me worried about that at all.
 
I have yet to see even one actual retail production ATI motherboard chipset product that measured up to the reference design or other preproduction/engineering samplese we have seen. I would not take AT's preview as a glimpse of what you might see in retail. We stopped reviewing preproduction sample boards almost two years ago for a very good reason: They don't represent retail product you can purchase. That said, I hope for another viable player in the motherboard chipset market, but I am simply not holding my breath or hitching my wagon to a star that has yet to be truly seen.

AT says, "ATI and Sapphire deserve praise for having the guts to bring this board to market."

This fact is that NOTHING is brought to market. This currently just qualifies as another paper launched product in my book. If you guys can show me where to buy one, I will order today and beat on it next week.
 
Wow to be honest I didn't even pay attention to the fact that this was a paper launch. As I was skimming through the article I saw the retail packaging, etc. and thought "wow they already have the board out to retail." Guess not. Aug 5th is the projected release date, which would be a week from today. Here's hoping Kyle beats on it the week after that.
 
I put in an email to Newegg to see if they are expecting stock....
 
I sense great anger over ATi's paper launches, Kyle. I'm suprised Sapphire hasn't sent you a retail sample for evaluation yet, as the release is less than a week away.
 
TheLonelySwedish said:
I sense great anger over ATi's paper launches, Kyle. I'm suprised Sapphire hasn't sent you a retail sample for evaluation yet, as the release is less than a week away.
Click to expand...


Currently I would not accept product from Sapphire for review on the motherboad side of things. We changed our stance a long time ago that I would rather do a motherboard that is right, meaning that is represents product that you can buy, instead of being first to the web with it. I personally think that we write the best mobo reviews on the Net, hands down. That is not to say AT is not doing a good job, but if you can't buy the motherboard that they (or anyone) are reviewing, what good is a superbly done review?
 
I wonder how Jaguar and Stingray perform? Never-the-less, I'm very excited about Grouper (AMD ATI Single GPU) and Halibut (AMD CrossFire).
 
Well tomorrow is the day we are all waiting for.

The fact that it came in a box is a step.

Can we not be pessimistic ?
 
The Doc said:
I wonder how Jaguar and Stingray perform? Never-the-less, I'm very excited about Grouper (AMD ATI Single GPU) and Halibut (AMD CrossFire).
Click to expand...

You may be excited for a long time.
 
mohammedtaha said:
Well tomorrow is the day we are all waiting for.

The fact that it came in a box is a step.

Can we not be pessimistic ?
Click to expand...


I have gotten "retail packages" that have NEVER gone for sale before. That means little.
 
OMG awesome AZALIA HD AUDIO :D

Cant wait, guess Ill have to wait a while then, was gonna jump into a chaintech vnf4.
 
cpush said:
do you guys think we will see a microatx board on this chipset?
Click to expand...
My source says yes.


PS. My source = my opinion.;)
 
I do understand you are fed up with paper-launches, Kyle... But that thing looks too finished and close to release IMHO. At least I can dream, right :)
If they do get it out of their door in August I think I'll bite the bullet and get one - hell, specs and benchmarks look grand.
 
ripped off Anandtech's forum: "We mentioned several times in the article that Sapphire will launch the new board in early August. Sapphire has confirmed their plans to launch around August 5. Sapphire has asked us to pass on that you will be able to buy retail PI-A9RX480 motherboards in most markets by August 15th-20th. Price will be "competetive with nForce4"."
 
while I, too, think this is a good stance towards the whole paper-launch mania, I do think one has to differenciate here. Anandtech is certainly not a site with the aim to be the first on the net, no matter how unlikely it is that the reviewed product ever reaches the retail channel. As already quoted above, they had their info directly from Sapphire, with an official press release on Sapphires part to back it up (sort of :) - you cannot simply backpedal a press-release like that without severly killing your reputation in the industry in no time). In this regard the review at Anandetchs' is definitely different from a Bitboys kind of preview.

After all, almost ALL review sites on the net had GTX (p)reviews before I could actually go out and buy one. That beeing said, I think Sapphire is just as respectable a company as nVidia is, with a fairly good reputation. If you ask me, we can definitely expect to see the board as reviewed by Anandtech in the retail channel within a month.
 
They've been talking about this board for like 6 months now before ATI's multi gpu had a name (It was during computex i think).

I'm with kyle on this one. I'll believe it when I see it. But I do like how the mofsets are grouped so they can be cooled by a northbridge heatsink. The version they were showing off had waterblocks installed on the northbridge and mofsetts.

Xtremesystems used to have a thread about it but it seems to have dissapeared.
 
wizzackr said:
ripped off Anandtech's forum: "We mentioned several times in the article that Sapphire will launch the new board in early August. Sapphire has confirmed their plans to launch around August 5. Sapphire has asked us to pass on that you will be able to buy retail PI-A9RX480 motherboards in most markets by August 15th-20th. Price will be "competetive with nForce4"."
Click to expand...


There you go. A review based on a motherboard that is not a retail product. Let's hope it represents the product you will be able to hopefully purchase soon.
 
ncantador said:
Kyle, I applaud your stance on this, and resisting the temptation to get the "scoop" on everyone else. Looking forward to your review on these products (when the time comes they can actually be purchased.)
Click to expand...


Thanks bro. I still get mails kicking us in the teeth for not being quick enough, but I would much rather be right than first. I stopped being concerned with posting reviews of motherboards you could not buy some time ago.
 
wizzackr said:
If you ask me, we can definitely expect to see the board as reviewed by Anandtech in the retail channel within a month.
Click to expand...


I thought you said it was supposed to be up next week? Now you are backpedaling to a month? You are going to seriously impact your reputation if you do that. ;)
 
Call me foolish, but I will believe it is a retail product, when I SEE a retail product that I can purchase online.

As for performance, I will hold my judgment on that when I too see it first hand.

Don't get me wrong, I am not bashing AT or Sapphire, it is just in the near-8 years of donig this, I have learned to not jump a mobo review as it can have you making judgment calls that negatively impact our readership.
 
wizzackr said:
true, i give you that! but hey - let me dream :D
Click to expand...


Dream in one hand......shit in the other.....see which fills up first. :eek:
 
does anyone else think that grouper board is the coolest mobo they've ever seen? it looks like ice cream!
 
Holy high memory voltage batman!

4.0 volts... wow... and mabye its not problematic like the DFI :D
 
phoderpants said:
does anyone else think that grouper board is the coolest mobo they've ever seen? it looks like ice cream!
Click to expand...


ABIT and several others did white boards years ago. Nothing new here, just a rehash of an old idea. I personally was never too fond of the creamy look. AOpen did one of the first and nicest colored motheboards I ever saw. Their black and "titanium" millenium motherboard that was signed by the engineers. The AX6BC Pro II. :)

December '99.

http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=NzRfMV8zX2wuanBn
 
Just in my opinion im going to wait for there next chipset so they can work out the kinks but thats just me.
 
phoderpants said:
i think i like it so much because the colors actually remind me of transformers somehow. there was a character, i can't remember which, that had pretty much those identical colors. or maybe it's because it's optimus prime without the blue.
Click to expand...

ROFL thats what I thought too.
 
Juic3 said:
ROFL thats what I thought too.
Click to expand...

It was the medic sports car one....anyone remember the name? It was my 2nd transformer car when i was a kid (the originals). Its probably burried under 2 feet of sand in the sand box at my parent's house.
 
" ATIs AMD platform does deliver - Anandtech's preview", I'm with Kyle on this one. This is ATI we're talking about. Deliver = Buy. And does all the ATI !!!!!!s honestly believe the 1st Gen of this product is going to be problem free to start out? How many MB Rev 1.0s have been fubar till they get it right? Lots...
 
ColStripe said:
This is ATI we're talking about. Deliver = Buy. And does all the ATI !!!!!!s honestly believe the 1st Gen of this product is going to be problem free to start out?
Click to expand...

Why not? And why not ATI? It's been done before by lots of companies with lots of products. Why should a product not work right from the start? Secondly, this is not a real 1st generation, as it is based on a chipset that has been out for a while.

As far as I understood Kyle he was more concerned about this to be a pure paperlaunch than about the product beeing carp - especially after a review at Anand's that was more than positive.

Come on guys - I want a little optimizm here :p
Anyways - I'll keep you posted about performance and possible bugs once I got the board next week ;)

edit: I personally think the creamy white looks pretty shitty. I wish they would've come up with some colourscheme like the one Kyle linked to. THAT looks awesome!
 
I don't know if this means anything or not. But part of my deal with Sapphire for building the Blizzard demo PC was getting one of the Grouper boards when it went to retail.

I recieved mine friday by Fedex.
Puremobo.jpg


Puremobo2.jpg



I don't know if that means anything or not but...there it is. Hopefully that means it will be out soon.
 
Sheldog23 said:
I don't know if this means anything or not. But part of my deal with Sapphire for building the Blizzard demo PC was getting one of the Grouper boards when it went to retail.

I recieved mine friday by Fedex.
Puremobo.jpg


Puremobo2.jpg



I don't know if that means anything or not but...there it is. Hopefully that means it will be out soon.
Click to expand...

Looks good; I'll probably be getting one towards the end of Aug. :cool:
 
Thanks for the pics Shel.

If that doesn't tell me its legit, then I dunno what else to tell ya. I can see them giving pre-release beta crap to reviewers to stir the pot, but if you're gonna be assembling around their board, I don't think they want you to get something thats so questionable in performance and reliability that they'd just throw it to you in hopes it works.

And now after reading those benchies and seeing the feature set, the only downside I saw is the USB 2.0 performance. Not a huge deal for me, but having a Digital Rebel XT, transferring a GB of pics over USB 2 is gonna be an issue. I can live with it, but its something to explore. Might be worth getting a USB card that can perform in place of the onboard in that situation. Regardless, the benchmarks look great, the board is sexy pretty, and it looks like it might be a winner. Just wait to see how ATI does with drivers and that sorta stuff really.
 
Gawd cant wait, still have to sell my current setup, any ideas on pricing ?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top