Lucid | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Thu, 17 Mar 2011 14:04:18 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png Lucid | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 Sapphire Pure Black P67 Hydra Motherboard (PB-CI7S42P67) Review https://www.kitguru.net/components/motherboard/zardon/sapphire-pure-black-p67-hydra-motherboard-pb-ci7s42p67-review/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/motherboard/zardon/sapphire-pure-black-p67-hydra-motherboard-pb-ci7s42p67-review/#comments Thu, 17 Mar 2011 13:44:40 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=37927 Sapphire are probably AMD's largest and longest term partner, producing the finest video cards for the discerning enthusiast audience. In recent years they have been expanding their product portfolio into other categories, such as power supplies and even all in one high definition media computers. KitGuru recently reviewed their latest Pure Black X58 motherboard which …

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Sapphire are probably AMD's largest and longest term partner, producing the finest video cards for the discerning enthusiast audience. In recent years they have been expanding their product portfolio into other categories, such as power supplies and even all in one high definition media computers.

KitGuru recently reviewed their latest Pure Black X58 motherboard which was not only exceptionally well built, but which offered massive overclocking potential. Today we are looking at their unique take on Sandybridge, with their Pure Black P67 Hydra motherboard. With a retail price of around £199.99 in the UK is this a board that you should be shortlisting for your next upgrade?

The specifications are impressive. Sapphire are using a 6+2+3 phase power design for the CPU core, CPU VTT and memory with support for up to 16GB of DDR3 memory at speeds up to 1,600mhz. They have also included voltage measure points, dedicated power and reset buttons along with a diagnostic LED and switchable dual BIOS configuration.

Specification
CPU Support Intel LGA1155: Intel Core i7 /i5 / i3 series processors
Chipset Intel® P67 Express Chipset
BIOS AMI BIOS, 16Mb Flash ROM
Memory 2 Channel DDR3 Technology
4 slots 240-pin DDR3 800/1066/1333/1600+ non-ECC ,un-buffered memory
16 GB Max.
Expansion Slots 4 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots
2 x 32-bit PCI slots
Storage 7 x Serial ATA III 6Gb/s connectors
Supports HDDs with RAID 0, 1,5,10 functions
Audio Realtek ALC892 HD Audio CODEC with 8-Channel
Ethernet LAN Marvell 88E8057 PCI-Express Gigabit LAN
Rear Panel I / O 8 x USB 2.0 port
2 x USB 3.0 port
1 x 1394a port
1 x SPDIF Coaxial OUT
1 x Audio I / O ports
1 x SPDIF Optical Out
1 x Supporting Bluetooth® 2.1 + EDR by Atheros AR3011
1 x e-SATA port
PS/2 KB/MS combo port
Internal I / O 2 x USB 2.0 headers
CPU 4 pin PWM Fan connectors
3 Pin Chassis Fan connectors
24-pin ATX Power connector
8-pin ATX 12V Power connector
Control (Front) panel headers
SPDIF In/out header
1 x 1394a headers
Special Features Voltage measure PAD
Power on Button with Power LED
Reset Button with HDD access LED
Clear CMOS button
Diagnostic LED with CPU temperature monitor
Dual BIOS with select Jumpers or switch
100% Japanese Solid Capacitor
Form Factor ATX, Size 12″ x 9.6″
OS support Windows Vista (32/64) bit
Windows 7 (32/64) bit
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ASUS ALERT: Brand new Republic of Gamers board breaks cover https://www.kitguru.net/components/motherboard/faith/asus-alert-brand-new-republic-of-gamers-board-breaks-cover/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/motherboard/faith/asus-alert-brand-new-republic-of-gamers-board-breaks-cover/#comments Fri, 28 May 2010 06:45:43 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=3098 As temperatures fell outside the Soho Hotel in London last night, the Asus inner circle pulled the covers back from the Crosshair IV Extreme. As you’d expect, KitGuru has the inside track on this exciting new development! While the X58 chipset consumer has been able to choose easily between CrossFire and SLi, the options have …

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As temperatures fell outside the Soho Hotel in London last night, the Asus inner circle pulled the covers back from the Crosshair IV Extreme. As you’d expect, KitGuru has the inside track on this exciting new development!

While the X58 chipset consumer has been able to choose easily between CrossFire and SLi, the options have been more limited for AMD processor lovers who wanted GTX action from nVidia. The Asus Crosshare IV Extreme gives you that choice, through the power of the Lucid Hydra chip.

You can now mix and match ATI and nVidia cards, while clocking your Phenom II X6 chips as far as their Global Foundry cores will take them.

These boards look gorgeous as well. Asus is keen to show off the fact that not only do the hardware engineering and BIOS teams excel at design – the products stand out a mile in any system build.

That attention to design has carried forward to the software design team, who have created a neat applet for smartphones which allows you to control your monster clocks remotely via Bluetooth. Joseph Wu, Asus design guru, said “It's time to try, on-the-fly, overclocking on your Smart Phone now.”

Asus is using the term TPU for its Turbo Processing Units [Wonder if it will catch on? – Ed] and the initial test data is very attractive (times in seconds – lower is better):-

TURBO UNLOCKER
OFF ON BOOST
Super Pi (1M) 22.23 19.93 10.32%
Wprime (32M) 25.02 21.96 12.22%
Cinebench 6978 7801 11.79%

While we all like to think that overclocking performance is purely the domain of the KitGuru enthusiast, it's nice to see a company the size of Asus giving users a ‘press the button for another 12%' option.

Iain Bristow, Asus Marketing Guru said “Our TPU is really smart and gives a turbo boost of up to 500% on single threaded applications. Perfect for file compression. The really cool thing is that your chip stays within defined TDP and electrical limits”

We reserve a special smile for the new board’s ability to take FOUR FAT GRAPHICS. Nice to see lard-arse GPUs being catered for in such comfort!

KitGuru says: Can’t wait to get hands on with this board in our labs. Just dying to put a low-fat-skinny-latte Radeon HD 5350 next to a FatBoi GTX490 and seeing if there’s anything left once the GeForce has rolled onto the ATI side of the bed.

Discuss in our forum over here or leave a quick comment below.

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