Sapphire Technology has just announced two new models in its Pure CrossFire series which are the first products to offer true 16x performance on both PCI-Express slots in a dual GPU system.

Based on the latest CrossFire Xpress 3200 chipset and SB450 Southbridge it combines support for the AMD Athlon64, FX and dual core.

PURE CrossFire PC-A9RD580
For the first time, both of the dual PCI-Express graphics slots on this mainboard provide full 16-lane performance promising the highest possible performance with dual graphics cards and CrossFire modes. Supporting 2000MT/s HyperTransport interface and up to 4GB of Dual Channel DDR memory, BIOS options also allow CPU, bus and memory speeds to be adjusted over a wide range - delivering the extreme overclocking facilities demanded by enthusiasts.

An additional PCI-Express x1 plus one standard PCI slots meet the need for expansion, and a wide range of onboard communications options include Marvell Gigabit LAN and Firewire as well as eight USB 2.0 ports and on-board High Definition Azalia 7.1 8-channel sound. Peak hard drive performance is assured with four SATA-I RAID and four SATA-II RAID connections as well as IDE ATA133 support.

PURE CrossFire Advantage
Based on the same architecture, the new Sapphire PURE CrossFire Advantage PC-A9RD580ADV board offers system integrators the most cost effective solution to a high dual graphics system with any AMD Athlon64 series processor.

Software Bundle
In addition to a WHQL Driver CD, Sapphire mainboards are now shipping with the Trend Micro Internet Security 2004, StompSoft PC BackUp, Stompsoft Privacy Protector and Stompsoft Trial Software (Recover LostData, Spyware X-terminator) as well as a Sapphire Select DVD. The DVD contains a selection of top applications and games from several software houses. The end customer can play each of the games for a one hour trial before choosing which titles to keep and using the activation codes for those titles.

Model	PURE CrossFire PC-A9RD580	PURE CrossFire Advantage PC-A9RD580ADV
Chipset	RD580+SB450
Platform	K8 socket 939 (2.0GTs H.T.)
HTT	2,0 GT/s
Memory Bus	Dual DDR400 (4GB max)
Slots	2 PCI-E x16, 1 PCI-E x1, PCI,	2 PCI-E x16, 2 PCI-E x1, 2 PCI,
Ports	(4+4) USB 2.0, ATA133, SATA RAID 0/1 (4), SATA-II RAID 0/1 (4)	(4+4) USB 2.0, 2 ATA133, SATA RAID 0/1 (4), SATA-II RAID 0/1 (2)
Audio	HD 8-channel
Comms	Gbit LAN, 2 IEEE1394	Gbit LAN, 10/100 LAN

Pricing and availability is not yet available on the two boards.