Sapphire PURE Innovation or Asus A8R-MVP

[Tweakin]

I'm looking at another "little" system and I find myself curious about both of these boards. I love the look of the Sapphire board, it has a great layout and the red on white would look great behind the window of a P150...little neon help and it would be an eye catcher. Thoughts anyone?

 

[afrost]

both seem really great, but I like the price of the Asus board......I'm not willing to pay $60 to $80 more for a cool PCB color

also the Ausus has a slightly better south bridge right?

 

[Diasper]

As afrost said. I'd go with the Asus paricularly as it has the better south bridge and even has better on-board sound. I actually prefer the layout of the asus more as it has the cpu closer to the back making ducting/airflow easier.

 

[Diasper]

Oh and the Asus also has more slots

 

[Tweakin]

As for the better South Bridge, the only "real" difference is the Disk I/O and USB performance. The Sapphire also comes with a Silicon Image 3132 controller which IMHO blows away anything on the market at this time for SATA Disk I/O throughput (the asus doesn't have this).

USB performance is not a real concern as the devices I use that need real throughput are on Firewire anyway. And as far as the sound goes, I believe they both use the Azilia HD chip.

I did miss the 3rd Pci slot, which could be nice...so keep em coming. I'm hoping I haven't missed something before I make a decision.

 

[Diasper]

I think the Asus usesa slightly updated version of Azalia Audio meaning slightly lower CPU utilisation.

Asus
Sapphire

However, I think they may be using different versions of Rightmark to test - however the Asus should be slightly lower.

 

[mamisano]

Are these boards even available for purchase in the US?

 

[Tweakin]

Should be available sometime this month...I'm hoping.

 

[KeepItRed]

I originally was going to purchase a Sapphire PURE Crossfire Advantage. Until I realized they are shipping in December '05 and I needed a PC now. My choices narrowed down to the DFI RDX200, Sapphire PURE Innovation or the ASUS A8R-MVP. I went with the DFI board because it was on sale and is pretty much neck to neck with the ASUS, performance wise.

 

[afrost]

i can't find the sapphire pure innovation board anywhere in the U.S. .....where are you guys seeing it?

 

[Tweakin]

It's not available in the US yet...I saw a release date of early December somewhere.

 

[computergeek22]

Do you guys know when the A8R-MVP is going to be released/available in the U.S.?

 

[Stoneburner]

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=202095059&loc=101&sp=1


Maybe this means they will get them soon? Or maybe buy.com is a bunch of evil bastards who still need to refund me for that Verbatim Dvd+r's i didn't want. I think they are evil but 104 dollars is not bad.

 

[afrost]

i found the pure innovation at ncix for $204 american

http://www.us.ncix.com/products/index.p...vpn=PI-A9RX480%20&manufacture=SAPPHIRE

it's not in stock though.....it would be nice if the street price dropped to at least $180

 

[Muggy]

Well, the ASUS board has been reviewed at AT and its been a complete head-turner when it comes to performance. As AT put it, a mainstream board which performs like a high-end, all frills board. Get the ASUS. I wouldn't buy the Sapphire just coz' its fancy. U can do a lot to make ur rig look fancy but not improve performance. So, my suggestion would be the ASUS.