SHAHZUNIQUE: Sapphire Pure Platinum Z68

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When Intel's Socket 1155 platform launched, the H67 chipset motherboards offered onboard graphics capabilities and were geared to the budget-oriented consumers. Conversely, the P67 motherboards catered to the enthusiast, requiring discrete graphics, and providing high performance overclocking abilities that were lacking in the H67 counterparts. But the Z68 chipset is changing that, bringing the best of both worlds to the mix. With onboard graphics but promising high performance, the new chipset is feature-rich and looks like a hybrid of sorts.The premium motherboard market is dominated by a handful of established companies, and Sapphire isn't one that really comes to mind when discussing new products. However, Sapphire has produced AMD motherboards, and is coming along on the Intel side, as the Platinum Z68 is their latest foray into the market. Sporting sleek styling and good features, this motherboard certainly looks the part. But it's in for a very tough fight against some established companies.

The SAPPHIRE Pure Platinum Z68 is a full ATX sized board that supports the Second Generation Intel SandyBridge i3 / i5 / i7 processor family using socket LGA1155. Four dual channel memory sockets are provided, supporting up to 16GB of DDR3 memory with current technology, and capable of supporting up to 32GB when suitable modules become available. There two USB 3.0 ports and four USB 2.0 ports (plus 8 on headers), as well as Gigabit LAN and Bluetooth connectivity with EDR (enhanced data rate). It has four SATA II 3G ports, and two SATA III 6G ports (+ two more on a header) and supports Intel "Rapid Storage" technology as well as RAID 1, 0, 5 and 10.

Four Video output options are provided for the on-chip graphics output of the CPU - VGA, DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort - of which any pair can be used simultaneously. The HDMI 1.4a port supports both video and audio. The rear panel has the standard I/O configuration for the on board 8-channel HD 7.1 Audio as well as SPDIF.

Add-in graphics support is provided by two PCI-E Gen3 x16 slots, spaced to allow the installation of two dual width graphics cards in CrossFireX. Further expansion is provided by an additional PCI-E x16 slot and three standard PCI slots. Lucid Virtu software is bundled with this board, which provides dynamic switching between the built-in processor graphics and discrete graphics cards. This is ideal for people who want to use high-end, 3D cards for high-resolution gaming and enjoy the power savings of switching to the built-in graphics capabiity of 2nd Generation Intel processors for 2D or media applications.

The Z68 chipset supports performance tuning by allowing separate adjustment of clock speeds, multipliers and voltages, ideal for overclocking. All these changes can be made in the BIOS of the SAPPHIRE Pure Platinum Z68. The board has a Dual BIOS, allowing for experimentation and updates, and for the hard-core enthusiast, voltage test pads have been brought out to the edge of the board for the critical voltages on the CPU and memory circuits. Other user friendly features include digital debug display and a push button reset for the BIOS, as well as start and system reset buttons.

Specifications:
CPU : Support Intel LGA1155: Intel Core i7 /i5 / i3 series processors
BIOS : AMI BIOS, 16Mb Flash ROM
Memory : 4 slots 240-pin DDR3 800/1066/1333/1600+ non-ECC ,un-buffered memory
16 GB Max.
Graphics : Intel® HD Graphics
Expansion Slots : 3 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots
3 x 32-bit PCI slots

Storage : 4 x Serial ATA III 6Gb/s connectors
4 x Serial ATA II 3Gb/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 : 4 x USB 2.0 port
                               2 x USB 3.0 port
                               1 x VGA(D-Sub) port
                               1 x HDMI port
                               1 x DisplayPort 1.1a
                               1 x Audio I / O ports
                             1 x Supporting Bluetooth® 2.1 + EDR by Atheros AR3011
                               1 x Single Link DVI
                             PS/2 KB/MS combo port

Internal I / O : 4 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

Form Factor : ATX, Size 12" x 9.6"

OS support : Windows 7 (32/64) bit

Sapphire Pure Platinum Z68