Published: September 10, 2025 | Source: Sapphire | Price: £159.99 | Author: Tom Logan

Sapphire B850A Nitro+ WiFi7 Review

Conclusion

There are a few Sapphire motherboards on the horizon. We know that the AMD Ryzen processors are currently the mass-selling options, and so it makes perfect sense that the B850 model will be the one that grabs the most attention. Sapphire clearly think so too as the B850A Nitro+ WiFi7 is the first of the quadrilogy to appear in our office for review.

Whilst we don’t know who the OEM is, it’s fair to say that Sapphire has had a decent hand in the aesthetic considerations. As you saw back on our test setup page the colouring on the VRM heatsink is different to that on their Nitro+ graphics card. That is, thankfully, the only niggle we have. Elsewhere the triangle iconography is found in abundance. Perfect if you’re someone who wants to have consistent theming across your system.

Although this is a B850 chipset and not the full fat X870 or X870E AMD option, the Nitro+ shows how attractive this more affordable chipset is. There is more than enough connectivity to satiate all but the most enthusiastic user. Three M.2 slots – one PCI Express 5.0 and two 4.0 – cater to all your storage requirements and there are four SATA ports should you need even more. Checking out the backplate and we find four USB 2.0 ports, three Type-A 10G ports and a single Type-C 10G one. It’s probably here where the difference in chipsets is most clear. Not that a 20G or even Thunderbolt 4 port would be a game changer. Just something to be aware of if you transfer tons of data on a regular basis.

Performance

Performance is very much split. If we stick to our regular test setup and testing methodology then the Sapphire Nitro+ is nothing noteworthy. It’s not disgraced by any means based on the price of the board, but neither does it stand out. Thankfully within the BIOS there is a very easy performance boost to be found. Ensure you have plenty of CPU cooling, go into the BIOS, turn on EXPO (XMP), click the Performance button and boom. Loads of speed. As our graphs showed. Obviously once we saw how quick it could go we went all in and used a RTX 5090 for a second set of gaming results, but the truth is the CPU based tests showed enough gains that the Sapphire Nitro+ lives up to its moniker at an aamazing price point. We know that performance can be made better with some BIOS maturity and we genuinely hope to report back on this soon.

Affordable pricing – just £159.99 for this WiFi7 model (£149 with wifi6) and nice, but subtle, aesthetics are nice features, but nothing new. The Performance mode is unquestionably what sells the Sapphire B850A Nitro+ WiFi7, and we think every single enthusiast owner owes it to themselves to hit that button when you enable EXPO as you all need to anyways. It thoroughly deserves the OC3D Value For Money award.