Introduction

AMD has been on the back-end with its current architecture processors since Intel brought us Core 2. For over four years now AMD has had to play catch up and it seems that every good thing has to come to an end. But while AMD has lost the performance crown to Intel, the Phenom II based processors are extremely cost effective, as are their supporting boards.

Sapphire has been one of AMD's biggest AIBs and has already produced some stellar graphics cards which we have been blessed to test here at TweakTown. Now it's time to start moving into motherboards and so far Sapphire hasn't produced a huge range, but today we have been sent a new candidate for their portfolio.

On the chopping block we have the new PURE CrossFireX 790GX based board using AMD's newest chipset designed for AM2+ and AM3 processors, this being the 790GX. How well will this board compare to our already tested MSI Dragon reference board? - Let's find out.