Sapphire Pure X870A WiFi 7 Motherboard Review - Premium looks at a bargain price

TweakTown Rating: 92%

Our Verdict

Sapphire's Pure X870A is an interesting alternative in the competitive motherboard market, thanks to its lovely design and build quality.

Pros

• Good value
• Lovely white design
• Good build quality
• 5G LAN

Cons

• Poor availability
• Cheap audio codec
• Average USB complement

Should you buy it?

AvoidConsiderShortlistBuy

Buy at Amazon for $391.64 USD

Buy at Amazon for £210.46

Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

Sapphire is primarily known for its range of AMD Radeon graphics cards. Though it has released several motherboard models over the years, it is making a renewed push into the market. It's a lofty goal, as the motherboard world is very competitive indeed. It takes time to build a reputation, but the $249 price for the Pure X870A WiFi 7 is a decent one for an X870 board, so on value alone, it's worth considering if all else is equal.

A while back, we reviewed the Sapphire Nitro+ B850A WiFi 7. Even though that board is a B850 model, it carries Sapphire's top-tier Nitro+ branding. The Pure is Sapphire's middle-tier sub-brand, typified by white designs. Maybe we'll see a Nitro+ X870E board at some point.

The Pure X870A supports AMD AM5 Ryzen 7000, 8000, and 9000 series CPUs. It supports up to 256GB of memory, and a 16+2+1-phase VRM with attractive heatsinks. It comes with 5G LAN, which is still rare on budget boards, and particularly first-generation X870 models.

AMD initially mandated dual USB4 ports for all X870 motherboards, so it's a little curious to see the Pure X870A including only one. It's generally lacking a bit on the USB front, with only two 10Gbps ports aside from the single USB4. Still, with its lovely design, it will appeal to users more interested in an aesthetically pleasing system that can run any CPU, with a single GPU, and an SSD or two.

The Sapphire Pure X870A WiFi 7 costs $249, though availability in the USA is still a concern. At that price, it's up against stiff competition from boards such as the ASUS ROG Strix X870-A Gaming WiFi, MSI MAG Tomahawk WiFi, and ASRock X870 Riptide WiFi.

Best Deals: Sapphire Pure X870A WiFi 7 Motherboard

	Today	7 days ago	30 days ago
	$391.64 USD	$395.27 USD	$405.63 USD	Buy
	$391.64 USD	$395.27 USD	$405.63 USD	Buy
	£210.46	£210.46	-	Buy
	$391.64 USD	$395.27 USD	$405.63 USD	Buy
	Check Price	Check Price	Check Price	Buy
	Check Price	Check Price	Check Price	Buy
	Check Price	Check Price	Check Price	Buy
	Check Price	Check Price	Check Price	Buy
* Prices last scanned 5/15/2026 at 10:10 pm CDT - prices may be inaccurate. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. We earn affiliate commission from any Newegg or PCCG sales.

Packaging, Accessories, and Overview

31

The Pure X870A box is on the big side. It gives the impression that it's a premium offering.

31

The rear of the box gives a comprehensive rundown of all the key features and specifications. Sapphire doesn't specify what WiFi 7 module the board uses on its website, but a sharp eye will note the inclusion of a MediaTek MT7925 controller. That information is required for regulatory purposes.

31

The list of accessories is short, consisting of a WiFi antenna, two SATA cables, a quick start guide, and regulatory notices.

Motherboard Overview

31

Looks are always subjective, but it's hard to argue that the Pure X870A is a bad-looking motherboard. It seems like a lot of the designer's attention went into the heatsinks, which feature attractive patterns and fonts. Sapphire could have opted for white RAM slots and headers, which would have added a touch of extra appeal.

31

The board itself doesn't have any built-in RGB, but there are three ARGB headers and a 12V RGB header for lighting strips.

There are five 4-pin fan headers, which is the bare minimum, but if you use splitter cables for things like an AIO cooler or front case fans, you should get by. The internal I/O is otherwise unremarkable.

The front USB complement comprises a single Type-C 10Gbps port, two Type-A 5Gbps ports, and four USB 2.0 ports. As there is just one USB4 port on the back panel, a 20Gbps port or USB PD would have been nice to see.

31

Four DIMM slots support DDR5-8400+ speeds with a capacity of up to 256GB. That's a respectable supported speed for a board at this price. It's unlikely to be a board that users will endlessly tweak the RAM on. As has been the case since AMD introduced the AM5 platform, it is still recommended to run memory in the DDR5-6000 to 6400 range. Running faster memory means dropping the memory controller speed, which adds latency.

31

The Pure X870A has a 16+2+1(VCore, SoC, Misc) phase VRM with 55A stages. It's enough to handle a Ryzen 9 9950X with PBO enabled, but it's obviously not a board you'd use with extreme cooling.

The brushed metal heatsinks of the Pure X870A are a highlight. They have a lot of surface area, and they work well, combining form and function. A 10-minute Cinebench R24 loop yielded a peak VRM temperature of 56 degrees Celsius, which is lower than some much more expensive boards.

31

The board has three M.2 slots mounted on the PCB. The primary M.2 slot supports PCIe 5.0 drives, while the other two support PCIe 4.0. All three slots have their own dedicated heatsinks.

31

All three heatsinks are secured with screws. I would like to see a quick-release mechanism for the primary heatsink, but it's understandable not to have them for the others. The primary heatsink is very effective, and it's surely assisted by the very thick thermal pad on the underside. There is a case to be made for screw-in heatsinks, as the thermal pads are more likely to make firm, secure contact with the SSD itself. A load temperature of 54 degrees Celsius is impressive!

Four SATA ports join the three M.2 slots.

The Pure X870A features two physical PCIe x16 slots. The primary slot supports PCIe 5.0 x16 electrically and is reinforced for heavy graphics cards. The second slot supports PCIe 4.0 x4 electrically. The final slot is a PCIe 3.0 x1 slot, so it'll be bandwidth-limited for many add-in cards.

The slot layout will suit users with a single graphics card, but I believe it could be optimized. The CMOS battery location is odd, given the available space on the PCB.

31

The rear I/O of the board is reasonably well equipped. S/PDIF is probably the only notable omission. I like that Sapphire included both DP and HDMI ports, giving users flexibility if you don't have a discrete graphics card.

The USB complement consists of a pair of USB 2.0 ports, four 5Gbps ports, a single 10Gbps port, and a single USB4 Type-C port. It's unusual to see just one USB4 port, as every other board I can recall with USB4 has two. It's not a stunning implementation, but it should be sufficient for most users.

A BIOS flashback button is a near-essential feature for AM5 boards, especially given that X870 boards are certain to support another generation of CPUs, and it's shaping up to support one generation beyond that.

The board's networking capabilities are good, with a Realtek RTL8126 5G controller and a MediaTek MT7925 Wi-Fi 7 controller, which supports 160 MHz connections only.

Next are the audio ports, which consist of a full set of 3.5mm line-in and line-out ports. A Realtek ALC897 codec drives these. This chip is many years old now, and is a bit disappointing when ALC1220 wouldn't add much to the bill of materials. As mentioned, S/PDIF is absent.

UEFI and Test System

UEFI

The big motherboard manufacturers have years of experience, and I did not expect much from the Pure X870A. However, the layout and design are quite simple with good contrast and fonts, and it's all logically laid out, with access to all of the board's functionality.

There's always a bit of a learning curve if you're a tweaker used to delving into an unfamiliar BIOS, but it's easy to find what you are looking for. In fact, I think it's quite a good layout. The Dashboard page contains the essential PBO and EXPO settings, as well as boot priority and fan control. That's pretty much all a non-enthusiast will need.

The fan control page is well-made, and all five of the board's headers can be controlled individually.

Test System

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X - Buy from Amazon
• GPU: MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3X - Buy from Amazon
• RAM: G.Skill Trident Z Neo RGB 2x16GB DDR5-6000 CL30 - Buy from Amazon
• Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid PL360 Flux - Buy from Amazon
• OS Storage: Teamgroup T-Force Z540 2TB - Buy from Amazon
• Power Supply: Super Flower Leadex Titanium 850W - Buy from Amazon
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro - Buy from Amazon

Benchmarks - Rendering and Encoding

Cinebench 2024

Cinebench 2024 is a reliable, widely used benchmark that measures both single and multi-threaded performance. Note that all our benchmark testing used the latest available Windows updates.

31

The Pure X870A scored 2,276 in the nT test and 137 in the 1T test. That's about what we'd expect to see from a Ryzen 9 9950X with our test settings.

Blender

A rendering application like Blender is just one of many reasons a user might consider a high-core-count CPU, such as the Ryzen 9 9950X. We use the Whitelands demo file and record how long it takes to render the image.

31

A result of 435 seconds put the Pure X870A towards the rear of the pack, even if a few seconds over a seven-minute test isn't all that significant.

Handbrake

Handbrake is a simple-to-use video encoding and transcoding application. Here, we convert a 4K movie trailer to 1080p. The results below show the average FPS, where higher values indicate the task will take less time to complete.

31

A result of 159.9 FPS is a better result, and is within touching distance of the fastest boards in this test.

Benchmarks - File Compression and Memory Latency

7Zip

7Zip is a commonly used free file compression and decompression app. It's very sensitive to changes in memory speed and latency, and scales with the number of CPU threads.

31

A score of 228.92 BIPS is a mid-pack result for the Sapphire.

AIDA64 Memory Latency

Memory latency has been an area where Intel has traditionally held an advantage. Chiplet architectures inevitably add some latency compared to monolithic chips. The real-world benefits aren't that important, though.

31

71.5 nanoseconds isn't a bad result. The underlying AGESA microcode is well and truly mature at this point. Sapphire obviously knows what it's doing when it comes down to fine-tuning memory performance, bearing in mind the big manufacturers have much more experience with BIOS fine-tuning.

Benchmarks - PCMark and 3DMark

PCMark 10 Productivity

We'd love to use our PCs solely for leisure, but some of us have to work too! The PCMark 10 productivity test performs a series of tests using office productivity applications.

31

The differences between the boards are not large in this test.

3DMark Storage

UL's newest 3DMark SSD Gaming Test is the most comprehensive SSD gaming test ever devised. It is superior to testing against games themselves because, as a trace, it is much more consistent than variations that will occur between runs of the actual game.

31

A score of 3,987 is a touch behind the fastest boards, but this test can be influenced by random background SSD accesses, so there's nothing to worry about.

3DMark Time Spy Extreme

Time Spy Extreme is losing favor as a graphics benchmark to Speed Way and Steel Nomad, but its CPU test is still a good measure of multi-core performance.

31

The differences between the boards are minor, with only a few hundred points separating them when measured by CPU score.

Benchmarks - Gaming

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 is brutal on graphics cards, but when things like ray tracing are removed, it becomes more sensitive to CPU and memory performance differences.

31

It's no big surprise to say the motherboard makes little difference in graphically limited scenarios.

Horizon Zero Dawn

When using the 'favor performance' preset, Horizon Zero Dawn can achieve high frame rates with powerful graphics cards.

31

The differences here are negligible in percentage terms. The Sapphire keeps pace.

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition

Metro Exodus received an update that added improved DLSS support, enhanced ray tracing features, and variable rate shading. Still, with a powerful graphics card, it is affected by CPU and memory performance at 1080p, though less so with a card like the RTX 4070 Ti Super.

31

All the tested motherboards perform essentially identically. A few frames cover the whole lot.

VRM and SSD Temperatures

These tests are performed to show off the differences between each motherboard's cooling assemblies. In the case of VRM testing, each board is subjected to a 20-minute Cinebench loop, while the SSD test records the peak temperature recorded during the lengthy 3DMark Storage test.

31

A peak temperature of 56 degrees is a good result for the Sapphire Pure X870A. It competes well with boards that cost much more. The board's large heatsinks and deep grooves help keep temperatures at very acceptable levels.

31

I consider 54 degrees to be a very good result for the Pure X870A. Though DIY-friendly retention mechanisms are all the rage and here to stay, there is an argument for screw-in designs to achieve better temperatures. When I removed the SSD, I noted the deep indentations in the thermal pad, indicating very good contact. What would you prefer? Easy access to the SSD? Or a screwed-down heatsink that may deliver better temperatures? My evidence is anecdotal, and a test of a like-for-like toolless heatsink versus a screwed-down one would be an interesting comparison.

Final Thoughts

Sapphire is a highly respected brand. Its Nitro+ graphics cards are considered among the best Radeon cards. It's great to see a company like Sapphire bringing competition to the motherboard market, which can only benefit consumers.

The Pure X870A WiFi 7 doesn't blow the competition away in terms of features or specifications. It's more of a solid entry with a core feature set and a lovely aesthetic. It will appeal to users looking for something a little different, without spending big bucks.

For $249, you get a capable, if unspectacular, VRM that will happily run any Ryzen chip, leaving you with some extra budget for a graphics card or an overpriced RAM kit. Its strength lies in its appealing design and build quality, which includes very capable VRM and SSD heatsinks.

31

The UEFI was surprisingly easy to navigate, and its design is easy on the eye. Sapphire took its time releasing its 800 series boards, and it seems as though the time was well spent. A rushed launch could have taken the wind right out of Sapphire's sails from the get-go.

While the board is certainly appealing, it does have a few shortcomings, perhaps the most notable being availability. Sapphire's motherboard division doesn't have years of distributor and retail relationships, but if it can build appeal and strong word of mouth, there's no reason it can't become a serious player in the motherboard market. We'll be watching to see how the company approaches the Zen 6 era and how it deals with the transition from AGESA to openSIL.

The inclusion of just one USB4 port is surprising. It's probably not a deal-breaker, but the board's high-speed USB support isn't amazing. It also uses the ALC897 audio codec, which is ancient in technological terms. If you care about gunfire and explosions more than picking out a cello in a symphony orchestra, then it will do fine, though.

The Sapphire Pure X870A is a lovely-looking board with very good build quality. It doesn't quite stand out among a field of tough competitors, but that doesn't mean it's not an appealing alternative for users looking to build a lovely white system with good cooling. It offers good value for money, and it deserves consideration.