Verdict: The great BIOS is let down by the poor component layout

Sapphire is still very new to the motherboard market, but if the two models tested in this month's Labs test are anything to go by, then the company is definitely one to watch.

The PURE CrossFire is based on the Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire Edition chipset, which means that it's capable of running any single graphics card, or two compatible graphics cards in CrossFire mode. Unfortunately, the high-speed PCI-E slots aren't as widely spaced as they are on the DFI Lanparty UT RDX200 CF-DR and MSI RD480 Neo 2-FI, which makes it more difficult to fit cards with large coolers or waterblocks. More seriously, two of the four RAID-capable S-ATA ports provided by the ATi SB450 Southbridge are obstructed by long graphics cards. A Silicon Image controller provides two RAID-capable S-ATA II ports.

There are only four USB 2 ports on the motherboard, but four extra headers are provided should you have any USB ports on your case. While there are two PCI slots, there are no 1x, 2x or 4x PCI-E slots, although given the scarcity of compatible cards, this isn't really an issue right now.

The VRMs are fitted with an extra-large heatsink, while the BIOS provides a whole host of useful performance and overclocking tweaks. Foremost among these is the ability to send 1.9V to the CPU, 4V to the RAM and 1.5V to the chipset. Another extremely useful feature is the ability set the number of POST attempts before the BIOS resets the overclocking settings to default. This is extremely useful, as it means that if you overclock too far then you don't have to reset the CMOS and lose the other BIOS settings. After some heavy tweaking, the PURE CrossFire was able to overclock our test CPU, an Athlon 64 X2 4200+, to a 240MHz FSB, which increased the CPU frequency from 2.2GHz to 2.64GHz. By dropping the CPU multiplier to 5x (the PC wouldn't POST at 4x), the PURE CrossFire was able to run with a 260MHz FSB.

The PURE CrossFire has lots of potential but is let down by its component layout and high price. If Sapphire releases a revision with a better PCB layout at a lower price, it would be a killer board.

• Cases - 21st November 2008
• Motherboards - 24th October 2008
• Gaming Headsets - 26th September 2008
• Dream PCs - 24th September 2008
• Headphones - 12th September 2008
• Media PC components - 22nd August 2008
• PSUs - 14th July 2008

• AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition - Processors
• Shuttle XPC SX48P2 Deluxe - Desktop PCs
• SilverStone Raven - Peripherals
• Raptor Gaming M3 Platinum - Peripherals
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 - Processors
• ATI Radeon HD 4670 - Graphics cards
• DFI Lanparty JR P45-T2RS - Motherboards