As you could see on the first page, the chipset supports six SATA-300 ports and all are present on the reviewed board.

This motherboard has an eight-channel on-board audio with individual analog jacks for each output, so the mic in and line in jacks aren’t shared with other functions, not requiring you to reinstall plugs when wanting to use a mike. The only thing we really missed on this motherboard was at least one on-board coaxial SPDIF output, which would allow you to build a media center PC with this motherboard: this motherboard has one DVI output you can easily connect it to an HDTV set thru an DVI-to-HDMI cable.

The audio codec used is Realtek ALC883, which features a 95 dB output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and an 85 dB input signal-to-noise ratio, with 24-bit resolution and up to 192 KHz sampling rate for its outputs and up to 96 KHz sampling rate for its inputs. While the output quality is good enough for the mainstream user, the input quality is too low and you will find too much noise when converting audio from an analog source (tape decks, VHS tapes, LPs).

This motherboard also features a Gigabit Ethernet port controlled by a Marvell 88E8056 chip.

On Figure 4 you can see the rear panel of the motherboard. There you will find one mouse PS/2 connector, one keyboard PS/2 connector, VGA output, DVI output, four USB 2.0 ports, one Gigabit Ethernet port and complete independent 7.1 channel analog audio outputs. As you can see there are no serial or parallel ports on the rear of the motherboard. One serial port is available thru an I/O bracket that doesn’t come with the board. It is also important to notice that while the chipset supports 12 USB 2.0 ports, only 10 USB 2.0 ports are available on this product.

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Figure 4: Rear connectors.

This motherboard also provides other smaller yet important features. The voltage regulator circuit uses ferrite chokes (which present a lower power loss compared to the iron chokes traditionally used on this circuit) and solid aluminum capacitors (which prevent the infamous capacitor leakage problem), plus it has passive heatsinks on top of the MOSFET transistors from this section. Unfortunately the capacitors used on the rest of the motherboard are traditional electrolytic caps, but they are all Japanese from Panasonic (Matsushita).

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Figure 5: Voltage regulator circuit featuring ferrite chokes, solid capacitors and passive heatsink.

As you can see on Figure 5 this motherboard uses an EPS12V connector, but you can use a regular ATX12V plug on this connector. EPS12V is only required if you install a very high-end CPU on your motherboard. It would be better if this connector came with a sticker covering half of it, so you’d know that it accepts ATX12V power plugs.

It also accepts 20-pin power supplies, as it comes with a sticker covering four pins from the 24-pin main motherboard power connector.

Other great feature found on this motherboard is a POST diagnostics display, which allows you to know thru a two-digit code what is wrong if your computer doesn’t turn on. This feature is usually found only on high-end motherboards. What is terrific about this display on this Sapphire motherboard is that it can be used to monitor the CPU temperature. So instead of getting the code “FF” after the computer starts loading the operating system, you get the CPU temperature. This is great because the POST display is useless when the computer is working fine, and thru this feature Sapphire found a better usage for this display. This function is perfect if you have a case with a transparent side window. This feature, however, is only available upgrading the BIOS to its latest version.

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Figure 6: POST diagnostics display and the six SATA-300 ports.

On Figure 7 you can see the display showing the CPU temperature (33º C in this example; this was just after we turned the system for the first time. After some time CPU temperature increased to 43º C).

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Figure 7: Display showing the CPU temperature.

By the way, this motherboard and the video card we used to compare the on-board video performance to (Sapphire HD 3450) came together in a package called "Got Sapphire Sampler" that is sent to Sapphire partners. If you are a system integrator or distributor located in North America you can get more information about the Sapphire partner program by writing to Nympha Lee (nymphalee [at] sapphiretech.com).

Before going to our benchmarking, let’s recap the main features from this motherboard.