ATI puts up and impressive show!

[Guest]

New chipset from ATI. Anandtech reviews a new chipset from ATI featuring a board from Sapphire.
<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2481" target="_new">Clicky!</A>
Puts up amazing OC numbers and features. The board even tops the DFI Lanparty!!

So, with pluses and minuses in several areas for each chipset, are there other factors that should influence your decision? If you are an Enthusiast, then the answer is a resounding "YES". Sapphire and ATI have designed Grouper and Crossfire from the ground up as an Enthusiast boards. The Reference boards are the best and most stable that we have ever tested from an overclocker's perspective, and the production Sapphire PI-A9RX480 is just as overclockable and stable as the outstanding Reference Boards that we have seen. This design and component excellence has certainly made its way into this first Sapphire production board, and it should make its way into other upcoming production boards. Reference boards always heavily influence the product that makes it out the door, and in this case, that is outstanding news

Wow the Ati Nvidia competition is now in the motherboard realm! this is amazing!

Asus P4P800DX, P4C 2.6ghz@3.25ghz, 2X512 OCZ PC4000 3-4-4-8, MSI 6800Ultra stock, 2X30gig Raid0

 

[emogoch]

I still prefer nVidia. Their Linux support is leaps and bounds about ATI.

 

[TheRod]

Yup!

ATI on par with nVidia (or better) in most aspect with this Chipset... Will users trust them with chipset?

They will have to work hard on this. nVidia got an easy win on AMD chipset market because when their nForce2 came out, no one could compete with them and they keep that advantage. And since most of us were not having good words for VIA, we all switch to nForce based Athlon systems or we all recommended them.

I'll probably recommends ATI stuff since they got HD Audio, stability and they are not new to the chipset market (think of laptop).

They only concern I have right now, is the drivers. I hope they will keep working hard and promptly offers new drivers to the enthousiasts. And the Linux support concern is comprehensible, but for most users is not important. I do personnaly thinks that Linux endorsement is very important to please enthousiasts.

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<font color=green>GeForce 6600GT 128Megs</font color=green>
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[Guest]

I agree with you, but they seam pretty commited to the driver issue. Their driver(for video card) have been improving a lot in the past years.
Also I saw today that they will soon release windows Vista drivers.
They seam to be on the offensive wich is really good.

Finally they seam to have listen to what enthusiast really want with this board, im sure they will continue to listen when it comes to drivers!

Asus P4P800DX, P4C 2.6ghz@3.25ghz, 2X512 OCZ PC4000 3-4-4-8, MSI 6800Ultra stock, 2X30gig Raid0

 

[endyen]

I thought Saphire was PC Chips, not PC Partner. Well the <A HREF="http://www.atitech.com/buy/promotions/crossfireready/motherboards.html" target="_new">boards</A> look the same, aside from the color of the pcb.