Sapphire X870EA Nitro+ PhantomLink Review

Introduction and Technical Specifications

Introduction

The Sapphire X870EA Nitro+ PhantomLink is the newest motherboard from Sapphire. As well as being based around the AM5 socket, it has a trick up its sleeve. If you’ve come here from our review of the RX 9070 XT PhantomLink you’ll know what that is. If you didn’t, the PhantomLink part of the name is what’s important.

The 12VHPWR connector for GPU power certainly helped tidy up our systems, particularly with so many cards moving to three 8pin PCIe connectors. However, poorly manufactured ones, or ones installed without due care and attention, can quickly overheat and either melt or damage the card. What we really need is a way to power our graphics cards without and of the annoyance of umpteen cables, nor the fear that voltage will spike and kill your expensive purchase. The BTF power connector is the way to do that. Your GPU power plugs securely and tidily into the motherboard, and the card into a power socket not dissimilar to a x1 PCI Express slot.

BTF systems are a great way to build your rig with the minimum of fuss. They do, however, require specialist cases of which there are only a few. You have to decide whether you want the neatness of a fully BTF rig, or just put up with cables and worry but in a chassis you like. The Sapphire X870EA Nitro+ PhantomLink is designed to solve the worry and case choice in one go. Instead of being a fully BTF setup it’s just the GPU power connector that’s moved across. Otherwise it’s the same as every other ATX motherboard.

It’s a concept easier to show than tell, so let’s move on to the pictures, once you’ve enjoyed the specifications.

Technical Specifications