14 DAY TRIAL // The moniker of a product says much about what buyers can expect of it, so those who will consider getting Sapphire's newest ATX Intel-ready board need not spend much time contemplating the Pure Platinum Z68 name.
Intel's Z68 chipset has just found a home in the Sapphire Pure Platinum Z68 mainboard, priced at the sum of 136.20 Euro, according to online listings such as this one.
This marks an occasion where a product actually comes out on time instead of getting delayed like Intel's Cedar Trail-M netbook platform just did.
All things considered, this is a fairly low amount of money for an LGA 1155 ATX motherboard that has multi-GPU support and even overclocking features.
What this means is that there is more than one PCI Express x16 slot present (three in fact), with CrossFireX compatibility, and Sapphire even threw in Power, Reset and Clear CMOS buttons, plus Dual BIOS and special components to enhance stability and lifespan.
Dual BIOS, as users know, is meant to let one easily revert to working settings, should an overclocking configuration go awry for instance.
One of the features that Sapphire felt would be good for the newcomer was the use of Diamond Black chokes (these are the special components mentioned above in fact).
What's more, the motherboard is built with an 8+3 phase power design and four DDR3-1600+ memory slots.
Needless to say, the SATA 6.0 Gbps storage interface is supported (four ports), though the SATA 3.0 Gbps is, of course, also ready to serve (just as many connectors).
Other specifications include USB 3.0 (two ports), 7.1 channel audio, Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth, a debug LED and four display outputs (DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort and D-Sub).
The Sapphire Pure Platinum Z68 is the first Z68 model to leave the company's labs and may not be followed by another, what with new chipsets and CPUs on the horizon.