Sapphire Pure Platinum A75 Motherboard Review

1. Introduction2. Packaging and Bundle3. The Sapphire Pure Platinum A75 Motherboard4. The Sapphire Pure Platinum A75 Motherboard: BIOS and Overclocking5. Testing Methodology6. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra 20117. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.58. Synthetic: 3DMark Vantage9. Synthetic: 3DMark 1110. Synthetic: PCMark 711. Real World: Blu-Ray Playback with Cyberlink PowerDVD 1112. Real World: MKV Playback13. Real World: Flash HD Performance14. Real World: Media Encoding with Cyberlink MediaEspresso 6.515. Gaming: DiRT 316. Gaming: F1 201017. Gaming: Call of Duty Black Ops18. Gaming: Dead Space 219. Closing Thoughts20. View All Pages

AMD launched their Lynx platform a couple of weeks back and we had a look at the top-end Vision A8-3850 APU and the Asus F1A75-M Pro motherboard in detail over here. We were very impressed with the overall performance of the platform, especially when factoring in the excellent graphics capabilities.

Today we are going to look at Sapphire's first attempt at a Lynx motherboard, the Pure Platinum A75. As it's name suggests, this sports the top-end A75 FCH (Fusion Controller Hub) and, as a result, it boasts an impressive specification which includes an array of SATA 6G ports and USB3.0 support. Unlike the Asus motherboard we looked at, the Sapphire A75 makes use of the full-size ATX form factor, rather than Micro ATX.

We have looked at a couple of Sapphire's motherboards in the past and have been left with generally positive impressions. Is the Pure Platinum A75 another strong release from AMD's largest partner?

Specification

• Processor and Socket: AMD Socket FM1 A-Series and E-Series APU
• Chipset: AMD A75 (Hudson-D3)
• Memory: Dual Channel, 4x DIMMs, 32GB, DDR3 1600 MHz+
• Display outputs: DVI, HDMI 1.4a, Displayport 1.1a
• Hard Disk: 5x SATA 6G ports, 1x eSATA port (rear)
• On-board LAN: Single 10/100/GbE LAN
• Interface: 1x PCI-Express x16 slot, 1x PCI-Express x4 slot, 2x PCI slot, 1x mini-PCI-E x1 slot, 4x USB3.0 ports (2x at rear), 7.1 HD Audio, Bluetooth
• Dimensions: 12″ x 9.6″
• Bundled Items: I/O Shield, Multilingual manual, 4x SATA Cables, USB3.0 front panel bezel
• OS Support: Windows 7
• Colour: Black PCB
• Weight: 1 kg

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