Thursday, May 22nd 2025
Sapphire at Computex 2025: Edge AI Mini PCs, NITRO+ PhantomLink Motherboard, RX 9060 XT
Sapphire brought unique new hardware to Computex 2025. We begin our tour with the new Sapphire Edge AI line of mini PCs. First up, is the Edge AI 370, a mini PC measuring 117 mm x 111 mm x 30 mm (WxDxH). It is powered by AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 "Strix Point" mobile processor, with two DDR5 SO-DIMM slots supporting up to 96 GB of memory. Storage comes from a 1 TB Gen 4 NVMe SSD. The CPU is configured with 12 cores (4x Zen 5 + 8x Zen 5c), while the maxed out RDNA 3.5 iGPU has 16 CU. The XDNA 2 NPU is clocked for 50 AI TOPS, and meets Microsoft Copilot+ requirements.
Next up, is the Sapphire X870EA Wi-Fi PhantomLink Edition motherboard. This is Sapphire's first high-end motherboard in years. The Socket AM5 motherboard is based on the flagship AMD X870E chipset, and offers premium connectivity and I/O features. It's also designed to visually match the company's latest Radeon RX 9070 XT NITRO+ graphics card, but its most striking feature is PhantomLink. This is a backside power delivery feature similar to ASUS BTF. The main PCI-Express 5.0 x16 slot has a trailing power delivery slot that relays power from a 12V-2x6 power input located next to the 24-pin ATX connector on the motherboard. This may not be a complete backside I/O motherboard, but at least keeps the graphics card free from any power cables sticking out. To use PhantomLink, however, you need a compatible graphics card, and Sapphire showed us the Radeon RX 9070 XT NITRO+ PhantomLink Edition.
Meant to be used with the company's X870E NITRO+ PhantomLink motherboard, the RX 9070 XT NITRO+ PhantomLink graphics card comes with a second set of gold fingers next to the PCIe bus, from which it pulls power from the board. The most interesting aspect of this card is that the PhantomLink gold finger is detachable, and you can use the card's regular 12V-2x6 input.
The other big graphics card in the Sapphire booth is the Radeon AI PRO R9700 32 GB professional visualization + AI inferencing accelerator. This card looks exactly like the AMD reference design, it's likely that PC Partner, Sapphire's parent company, is the OEM for this card.
We end our tour with a look at Sapphire's custom-design Radeon RX 9060 XT graphics cards. Among the board designs shown were the Sapphire Pure RX 9060 XT, which is built on the white color scheme; and the Sapphire RX 9060 XT Pulse. Both the Pulse and Pure will be available for the 8 GB and 16 GB variants of the RX 9060 XT, when the GPU goes on sale on June 5.
We also saw the Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB NITRO+, a card that's designed to look premium, and which comes with an 8-pin PCIe power connector located on the top.
Next up, is the Sapphire X870EA Wi-Fi PhantomLink Edition motherboard. This is Sapphire's first high-end motherboard in years. The Socket AM5 motherboard is based on the flagship AMD X870E chipset, and offers premium connectivity and I/O features. It's also designed to visually match the company's latest Radeon RX 9070 XT NITRO+ graphics card, but its most striking feature is PhantomLink. This is a backside power delivery feature similar to ASUS BTF. The main PCI-Express 5.0 x16 slot has a trailing power delivery slot that relays power from a 12V-2x6 power input located next to the 24-pin ATX connector on the motherboard. This may not be a complete backside I/O motherboard, but at least keeps the graphics card free from any power cables sticking out. To use PhantomLink, however, you need a compatible graphics card, and Sapphire showed us the Radeon RX 9070 XT NITRO+ PhantomLink Edition.
12 Comments on Sapphire at Computex 2025: Edge AI Mini PCs, NITRO+ PhantomLink Motherboard, RX 9060 XT
Also, that motherboard is visually stunning. :respect:
Also, that Nitro card is using Asus' connector:
videocardz.com/newz/asus-unveils-new-1000w-gc-hpwr-gpu-power-connector-for-cable-free-btf-2-0-systems
There still is a 12VHPWR connector on the motherboard (as seen on the picture). The one difference between Asus' motherboard is that Asus put 12VHPWR on the backside with 3x 8-pin connectors located below it as alternative power source. I think Asus' version works better as having 12VHPWR on the front will create just another failure point from users trying to route it with 180 degree turn.That you probably can't buy outside of Asia :( Just like any of their other motherboards.
Not sure why these companies keep doing this (placing 2 HDMI ports instead of 1 DP and one HDMI).
Sapphire have been releasing motherboards for a few years now, mostly lower end Micro ATX and Mini-ATX boards based on the B series chipset for AMD. Maybe them releasing a higher end motherboard could also signal that they are planning to sell their motherboards in more countries. This would be a good thing, because Sapphire motherboards are cheap and very competitively priced compared to the Taiwanese big three brands.