Sapphire Pure Platinum A85XT (A85X) Motherboard Review

Taking a look first hand at the board, we instantly get a feel that this is an AMD based Sapphire board with some funky colour schemes going on including a black/dark brown PCB, black and blue slots and the occasional bright red SATA ports and various connectors. While some may consider it a bit of a mish-mash, I’m actually quite fond of the design as it really does stand out. I’m glad to see Sapphire sticking with their design of using a dark PCB as this is very much welcomed into the market place at the moment while lighter boards are starting to appear to be phased out.

Zooming in to the new FM2 socket, we can see an ample amount of space around the socket for most CPU coolers on the market. A single passive heatsink sits to the side of the socket to assist in keeping the VRM/MOSfets cool. We do find a single 8-pin CPU power connector just behind here to provide enough power to the CPU, especially when overclocking. There is also a CPU fan header just north of the CPU socket and the socket retention bracket makes installing coolers a painless task that many existing AMD users are familiar with.

In terms of cooling, we also find a smaller low-profile passive heatsink solution covering the A85X chipset from AMD. It includes slats along the cooler to best help dissipate the heat and some subtle, small Sapphire branding is also present. By being low-profile, it also allows you to install larger PCI-Express graphics cards without obstruction.

Moving back up towards the top of the board, we find ourselves looking at the four DIMM slots which supports up to 32GB of dual-channel DDR3 memory modules with speeds ranging from 800MHz all the way up to 2400MHz+ for those with extreme needs.

Also nearby, we see another fan header and the 24-pin ATX power connector in its usual location.

Moving down the board towards the expansion slots, we find a variety of different slots including a single PCI-Express x4 slot, two PCI-Express x16/x8 slots, two PCI-Express x1 slots and two legacy PCI slots for older generation expansion cards. With the two x16 type slots, one runs at x8 speeds and together allows for AMD CrossFire technology and the ability for Dual graphics when paired with the APUs integrated graphics.

Another smart move by Sapphire is the addition of a Mini PCI-Express/mSATA connector which is where the market is heading in terms of SSD caching solutions and this provides a low-profile solution for a variety of devices.

Also near to the expansion slots is where we find the front panel audio and SPDIF connectors for those wanting to connect their front panel headphone/microphone jack ports.

Moving slightly further down the board, we have an integrated speaker, COM port, reset CMOS button, reset button and power button as well as a BIOS selection switch. Next to his is a further fan header, a native USB 3.0 port which can be used in conjunction with the supplied USB 3.0 front panel/rear panel bracket. Also along the bottom are two USB 2.0 ports, another fan header, debug LED for POST troubleshooting and your typical front panel connectors.

The CMOS battery is also down here and can easily be removed without being obstructed by larger PCI-Express cards.

The SATA ports on this board are certainly bright and colourful with a very bold red colour scheme. There are seven ports in total of which all of them operate at SATA 3.0 6GB/s speeds and include AHCI support through the AMD A85X chipset. RAID is also supported on all ports with functionality for RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 arrays.

Lastly, we finish up by looking at the rear I/O of the board and find four USB 2.0 ports, a PS2 mouse/keyboard combo port, a Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR module that utilises the Atheros AR3011 controller chip and an optical SPDIF port. In terms of display connectivity, we have all of the favourites with HDMI, DisplayPort, VGA and DVI. Gigabit LAN is here thanks to the Realtek RTL8111F controller, as well as two USB 3.0 ports (through the AMD A85X chipset). Lastly we find six auxiliary ports providing 8-channel audio through the Realtek ALC892 HD audio codec.