Newegg has them for $169
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813154006
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Newegg has them for $169
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813154006
The only shop that sells it here is asking 189€, no way :nono: :slapass:
umm haven't noticed them putting out a new bios ever since its been available overseas. Not what I call good support from the company. I'll wait for results. Besides for 170 thats a hella lot of money for a non-xfire board.
Personally, I think ATI needs to do a bit more development on these motherboards before they get them right, but once they get all the stuff worked out and get the performance up they should (hopefully) have some killer boards.
Anyone want to give it a go
That board would of been hot back in August. Too Little To Late, esp for that price and no new BIOS.. Whomever buys it now is just wasting their money.
I'll hit it at $100. :P
C'mon Major, you know you want to buy this~
i'm tempted. i've been considering selling my Ultra-D for a little while and possibly getting an Expert....or possibly getting this.
what's so bad about the current BIOS on the Sapphire board?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Haltech
why do you say this? Its not like any other good crossfires are coming out anytime soon. correct me if im wrong.. I really like the white PCB as well
EDIT:ohh shoot.. its not crossfire? nevermind this motherboard then
wow price seems like a rip off.... the white pcb is so nice though :D
WAAAAAAAAAAAY too late. The nonexistent support makes the price a definite no-no.
they have about 20 boards, I know cause I tried to add 99 and only 20 showed up. hahahaaa. It didn't immediately sell out, how long did it take for the A8N32 to sell it? The time it took me to type this.
Too little, too late.
deception``
ati chipset is still not fully mature yet...and why would you pay 50 bucks more for less performance??
2 chipsets on the board m8, which one is not mature?Quote:
Originally Posted by calcal
The south bridge is 12months old, it just has slow USB2 but the IDE and SATA1 are real fast, infact faster than some SATA2 controllers.
The Northbridge is just as good as NF4 , it controls many things and is quite overclockable. The only issue is apart from ATI making their own boards no one took it serious enough and produced a qulaity board around it. Sapphire have copied Grouper and Halibut, DFI have some issues with the RDX so were are stuck with these.
I know my Halibut here is as fast as any NF4 board i have apart from the USB.
Imature chipset, I think not...late maybe yes, but some of the blame does lie with the board manufacturers.
If Sapphire provided more support for this board, many of our views would change. Heck Asus releases bios even before the board ships. I can't speak for others, but I haven't seen a single bios update from Sapphire for like months. The ATI chipset does seem good and it is true that hardly anyone truly went the extra mileage to make a good board out of it. With the reference board being so awesome, you would think it is easy to just copy the reference design, I mean ATI has all the blueprints already. Sapphire promoted the board, but forgot to promote the actual product. So sad.
The board has been done for so long now. I am hopeing the bios has matured before it was even released. I ordered one so I will soon find out. Does any one know of known problems with the existing bios?
Let us know how it goes with Opterons if you have one.
Will do, I have a week 34 170 to try it out with.:)
I think the issue with it being late are the Rumors of ATI's new chipset being about done. Also this board has been announced for way too long.
Personally looking at the board I'm curious as to why there are so many places for chips that appear to have been 'cut' from the final revision. I know the DVI-port was removed early on but the 2 SATA ports and xtra BIOS chips that were on earlier revisions and now dissapeared are curious. Sapphire could have at least cleaned up the board some; with those empty traces it looks like this is still a pre-production board; especially with no 'Premium' model to fill those traces.
Finally, it would seem this is meant to compete with the nForce 4 Ultra. However ATI is doing with it's board what it did with it's video cards; pricing them substantially higher than the competition [granted the Video cards are dropping in price rather fast, and the CF mobos arnt that far above SLI, there just are not any budget CF boards yet]
the bios chips were for the sata controllers, they are no longer needed so were removed.
They cut some components to save on cost, when you use high end caps etc it soon adds up on a board so something had to go to leave the board at least aaffordable.
Regards support, I have no idea but I will ask if I can release a known good reference bios that i like. The issue is its AMI and not award, but I feel it clocks better and is more stable than the Award build.It also has some added options not available in the sapphire build....I have to ask though, they say no it stays under NDA.
Thanks Tony, they need all the help they can get anyways since they won't do it themselves.
That's exactly the problem. Sapphire has been half-assing support for this board from jump. Why anyone would pay a premium for such pathetic "support" is beyond me. Personally can't stand nvidia's crap chipset solutions but I wouldn't buy this either. Thank goodness ASRock is around and ULi makes some good stuff as SiS seems to have completely abandoned the K8.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tony
Well if that ain't the most fanboyist remark I ever heard... :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Bar81
Yeah, I'm a fanboy of... nothing. Thanks genius.
Very true Tony. Saying that the chipset is immature is totally incorrect. This chipset is the highest volume player in the AMD K8 OEM market. There are many, many, many millions of them out in the market in a variety of systems. This should serve as an indication of the product's maturity. Big OEMs have much higher quality standards than channel motherboard makers.
As for bios support, what all is missing or wrong with the existing BIOS? If you have issues you can PM me and I'll see what I can do. Too many BIOS releases are not a good thing in my eyes, it means something is wrong and needs fixing or the BIOS was incomplete.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tony
many bios releases IMHO means the mobos have issues. Just because a manf doesnt update there bios every week doesnt mean they don't have great support.
I think people on this forum have been spoiled by weekly bios releases from DFI.
But No one is ever happy on this forum. I see more and more complaining every day :rolleyes:
:toast: :toast: :clap: :clap:Quote:
Originally Posted by Dissolved
Yeah, except when a manufacturer's support actually sucks like Sapphire's. They don't even help users on their own forums. Whether or not there are newer BIOSes is not the reason that Sapphire's support sucks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dissolved
I think people have every right to complain when they are asked to pay a premium for a product with sub-par (Actually nonexistant) support from the manufacturer.
online forums are like a benifit to users. take it with a garin of salt.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bar81
(there used to be Just phone support, Would you rather wait on hold on a phone for 2hrs, or wait a day or so for an online responce?)
to me it sounds more like you just hate sapphire in gernal. im sure theres manf's out there with next to no support.
I suck at debates, but Im just tired of all these users complaining. Its just dumb. If you don't like a company don't buy from them. you dont gotta bash them 10 times in one thread.
But yea, im not attacking you bar, you have a good piont. but I see no comments on the board itself. just negitive remarks on the manf.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tony
Ok Tony and Grayskullt, i just orderd one since my DFI ultra i believe has gotten condensation under the first mem slot and won't boot. It will boot in the second orange slot but not the first.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grayskull
I hope this sapphire is promising and i'll ask you Tony and Grayskull questions if i run into some trouble. I'll give it a shot and see how it goes. :)
I will be running it with an opty also orderd, cause i won't sacrafice my FX57 in case it's a cpu assasin. My PSU is a pc power and cooler 850ssi with 2 gigs of ballistix tracers, i hope it likes them. Ohh and my graphics card is X850XT PCI X platinum edition.
Whish me luck guys!
Board arrived today.:)
However the X1800XT did not show up yet.:(
I don't have any PCI Ex vid cards until it shows. Will post results as soon as card arrives.
Any one else in the States got one up and running yet?
when's your GPU arriving? and is it true that there's only up to 1.55v for CPU?
Looks like Monday. Last time I buy from ZZF. :( No I think you can go up to 2.15v on cpu. :eek: Scary!
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2481&p=5 :D
It's a very COOL board... albeit a bit late. BTW, that GREAT new ASUS CF board is at zzf, too.
C
Cool, post some results when ya can..:toast:Quote:
Originally Posted by markr
Mine is coming next week from the EGG. Hopefully i can hook it up to my single stage phase change by Chilly1
i'm seriously considering getting a new board. i can't decide between the Sapphire PI, the Asus M8V or whatever, or just a new Ultra-D because i believe mine is rather weak. I've been very happy with the Ultra-D, but on the other hand, I kinda want to try something new.
Same here, only mine or won't post in mem. slot 1. so i'm going for this one and see. it looks like something nice to play with.Quote:
Originally Posted by 5-clicks
Bump. Anybody recieve and test this board yet or have at least some pics to post? I'm still trying to decide.... :D
me aswell so i can have it by my xmas LAN :banana:
sooo does it support dual core opties? If not, this is where a bios update would come in pretty handy.
Yes dual opty a go. Have board up and running now. Very nice and Very Stable OC'er.
When I set it up the other day and hit the power button my new PC Power & Colling PSU gave me quite the fireworks show. Lucky for me it did not take anything with it. Swapped PSU out and booted right up.
I have my Opty 170 running at 2.7 with 1.49v on air. Still going up.:)
Same chip on NEO2 was 2.5 max stable and needed 1.55v to get there.
Nice :)Quote:
Originally Posted by markr
Post some pics/bench's when you have a chance, I might try one of these. Thats crazy about the PCP & P, hardly what you'd expect with such an expensive PSU.
Any utilities that will read temps and volts? Sapphire doesnt provide one and cpuz says im pushing 1.8vcore though the chip. Bios is only 1.375. Scared the heck out of me for a sec. Anyways the board is up and running. Seems solid so far. Gonna test it at stock to see how it is first.
so hows the bios lay out on this mb? does it use award or AMI and is it a night mare like the asus a8n32-sli's bios? i like this mb cause it is set up for one video card instead of the two you find on most other mbs these days. any of you guys who just got this mb will you post some pics and tell us how you like the mb?
thx perc,
testing at 240htt right now at stock volts. Opty 170 btw. board seems solid so far. If you can definitely flash to the newest bios before install windows. XP installation is horrendously slow with current bios and won't running 2gig at 200mhz with shipping bios. Everything in the bios is well laid out, it is a godsend compared to the A8N32. So far I'm happy.
Situman, have you tried ATI System Manager utility for temps and volts? You can adjust just about everything from windows.
Dude, i just got the board also and i'm testing at 240 also. What is the newest bios? Mine say 9/26 at post. And your right about v-core scaring the efen crap out of me at 1.80 in CPUZ :eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by situman
These are my system specs.
Sapphire pure
opty 148 0545CPAW
x850xt PE w/ 511 cats
2 gig Ballistix Tracers
36 gig Raptor
Pc power & cooling 850ssi
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/3...onandopty0.jpg
vcore in bios is 1.51v (1.45 + .06 vid offset). ATI manager is 1.46. Not sure which to trust. Maybe Grayskull can comment on that.
Which bios you running situman? i'm having some warm boot issues.
newest on the site right now. I don't have any warm boot issues. 9*310htt on my opty 170 as we speak testing for stability right now.
i take back the bad stuff i said about this board. This thing is rock solid. Worlds better than some of the more established so called enthusiast board makers (Abit to name one). I had this board for two days and so far so good (knock on wood). I would have lost two ABIT boards by now, but this thing is solid.
As "outdated" as this board is, it is much better than most boards out there. Currently testing at 320*9. Here's a prior screenshot. O I should note, the IHS is off my opty.
WOW, 1.792 vcore..... Think that chip will still be running tomorrow?:rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by situman
thats a cpuz bug. roll ur eyes to the far left of the image in the post above u instead of rolling it at me please. :)
No offense intended........Quote:
Originally Posted by situman
Situman, the bios from the website, are they the same as the 9/26?
When i flashed the board, it kept 9/26.
Congrats on your board :toast: as far as mine goes, i have a hard time
breaking 240 htt. Are you using 2gigs of memory? i'm on Ballistix tracers and
i feel this board ain't feeling them.
Rebel900, Did you make sure PLL is set to High Speed Mode? It vastly improves high HTT.
see my sig for hardware. I booted all my mem setting at auto and let the bios choose the settings. Then I set to manual and kept the settings. I flip on the mem dividers and oc the cpu from there. I could care less about running my mem 1:1. It has more than enough bandwidth.Quote:
Originally Posted by REBEL900
o the vcore volts doesn't go above 1.4v even though it said 1.55v. At 1.4volts you gotta use the vcore offset or something to increave vcore. ATI Manager will tell you exactly how many volts are going through the cpu.
Humm, gonna try it now, but what about PLL stabilty calibration?Quote:
Originally Posted by markr
Situman, what divider you using?
situman can u take a pic of your board??
can EVERYONE who has this take pics of their systems ?? :p: It looks like a very beautiful board...
Perkam
anyone got pics or links for tweaking the 2gig mushies on this board? Google failed me this time.
There is one pic on page 2 here from me :)Quote:
Originally Posted by perkam
This board is very appealing to me! The only downer is that it's not Crossfire.
A Crossfire clone is supposedly on the way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 5-Clicks
Supposedly the xfire version will overclock a little lower. At least from the one and only review I've read a few days ago.
Good to know :toast:Quote:
Originally Posted by Grayskull
link?:stick: EDIT: found it. Techpowerup.com :)Quote:
Originally Posted by situman
Well i finally broke 240 and i'm at 245 now. I had to use a setting in bios called PLL and set it to high speed. Now i don't know what speed is high speed, but it would be nice to know since there is a calibration or speed number you can input for probable higher gain.
http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/9...0htt4ic.th.jpg
Grayskull said to never touch the PLL value. Leave it at 00. High speed is good and leave it at that.
Overclockability is the same. The only variance is from board to board. There's nothing that makes one board better or worse than the other.
Quote:
Originally Posted by situman
Enable HTPLL high speed mode when overclocking and do not change the calibration values. This is the optimal setting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by REBEL900
Quote:
Originally Posted by REBEL900
Is there a place to download the ATI System Mangament utility. I would like to try it on another mobo that uses a ATI RX480.
why is it so expensive? geez
http://www.sapphiretech.com/en/driverfiles/56.ZIP
ATI System Manager download
Do not use voltage adjustments on another board, results unknown.........
Thank your, Thank you.Quote:
Originally Posted by markr
EDIT
Bad news. The ATI system manager dosen't work with ULI south brigde.
Thanks for your response Grayskull, i am now at 250, 1:1 with the mem and priming. I feel i have to go at it slowly, since if i don't, i get a system hang and have to reset C-MOS.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grayskull
I cannot see the calibration values, it is set at HIGH speed on the HTPLL. The optimal number value is one i'd like to know, since i want to push this mobo beyond optimal and into extreme. :)
Use the Windows based tool to overclock and find the limits. :) So if it hangs, the board will boot up on the next boot.
Leave the calibration alone, the optimal value (best for overclocking) will automatically be selected for you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by REBEL900
Grayskull, if I use ATI manager to overclock will the settings be saved into the bios as well or I would have to physically go in and change it? Thanks.
That is one of the most beautiful motherboards I've ever seen, I'd like to buy it and see how it does but a)no money ATM, b)waiting for socket M2, c)need another x8 PCIe slot for my RAID card, d)waiting for my phase change unit to be finished. Aww well....
No the ATI System Manager Tool will not save your settings to bios. The power of the ATI System Manager is to find the limits of the hardware very quickly and easily in Windows and then manually apply the settings in bios.
Quote:
Originally Posted by situman
Using the ATI manager i was able to find out why i couldn't get past 250HTT, without having to keep resetting c-mos.
By upping the voltage on the PCI-E volttage (1.8 default) to 1.9 i was able to stop windows from freezing at 260HTT. But this was not stable at all, so i tried the PCI-E 1.2 default to 1.40~~> Noo good. Puter would BSOD at boot.
Ok let's try upping all voltages to max including HT link Voltage, Viola! I am now priming at 260HTT :)
I still have warm boot issues, and feel a bios upgrade for that and my Tracers would make the board shine a lot better, we'll see.
<a href="http://img499.imageshack.us/my.php?image=grouperat260htt8eb.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img499.imageshack.us/img499/8359/grouperat260htt8eb.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>
Time to go to the picket line and support my striking brothers for NYC TRANSIT, we've walked out and there are no trains and buses running :nono:
Oh the joys of overclocking... Let's see, if too conservative the user re-tweaks until he blows stuff up, too aggressive and the manufacturer gets the blame... :rolleyes: :rolleyes: Don't think this one is in the cards....Quote:
Originally Posted by mesyn191
I came to the same conclusion as pcdoc1 You're asking for the impossible.
What HT link multiplier are you using?
Quote:
Originally Posted by REBEL900
what do these past few posts have anything to do with Sapphire's boards? at least keep it to PM so you don't get off topic. thanks :)
My question was really for Greyskull as he seems to know alot of stuff about mobos in general or at least has the ability to talk to people who do at ATi/Sapphire, but pcdoc1 had to go make some snarky comments and I called BS on him. He deletes his stuff I've got no problem deleting mine...
Huh? I am at 260 with the HTT Voltage at 1.50, which is max. I have failedQuote:
Originally Posted by Grayskull
prime after 6 hours. Any suggestions? PLL stability Calibation might be the key to more mhz, if i knew what is was set at.
you can set the multiplier in the bios. 1-5 i believe. so it takes 260 x that #
try setting it at 3
what wrong with this?Quote:
Originally Posted by Bar81
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131525
No such setting, and the board has warm boot issues.Quote:
Originally Posted by pablo
It is there but it is not labeled 1-5. It is 200 for 1, 600 for 3 ect.Quote:
Originally Posted by REBEL900
I think he works for ATiQuote:
Originally Posted by mesyn191
You're probably running at 260*5 = 1.3GHz on the HT link and it's not liking it with your particular CPU. Try this. Drop the HT link multiplier to X3 ( for now and reduce the HT link voltage back to 1.2V. Reboot. Now try to see if you can pass at 260 in Windows. If so, keep increasing the HTT with ATI System Manager until the memory or CPU start failing. When you reach that point, note all the settings. The try to increase the HT link mulitplier to X4 (800MHz mode) and see if that's stable. If so, you're done. If not, revert to X3 (600MHz mode)
Quote:
Originally Posted by REBEL900
Ofcourse it's there ;) This board has every CMOS setting known to man.
Look here in BIOS: Advanced Chipset Features->LDT & PCI Bus Control->LDT Bus Frequency
1GHz = x5
800 MHz = x4
600 MHz = x3
400 MHz = x2
200 MHz = x1
And yes, the board probably will have warm boot issues at 260x5. ;)
Quote:
Originally Posted by REBEL900
Both of you please delete your stuff that's not pertaining to this thread.
As for your question, yes a stress test could be inserted into bios to test the system without booting to Windows. However, space in bios is very limited. Second, what exactly do you run? Memtest for memory is not ideal but probably good enough. How about CPU? HT bus? PCI-E bus? Next, if you run isolated tests to figure out max speed on each interface, what happens when any combination of interfaces is active (more stressful) like you would see in a typical windows scenario? It's not as easy as it may seem to just put something in bios. The best stress test is to test in the exact environment the system has to run in...Windows or Linux or whatever your OS happens to be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mesyn191
I receive my board this morning
I 'll test overclcoking as soon as the windows' install is finished
I see it *finally* made it out. Nice board although 2 SATA is too little, 3 should be the minimum. Its sad that they're using the L southbridge instead of the full fledged one. I have three drives so when I factor in the cost of an add in card it's like 30% higher than the asrock for no reason. Still if I was buying now I'd probably go with the SiS if it had proper voltage adjustments for core and mem and support for opterons. Nice price.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zebo
edit: UGH, no I wouldn't, they stuck the LAN on the PCI bus. Crap.