Sapphire is happy to tell the world that three of its motherboards can support 125W quad-core Phenom X4 9750 and 9850 Black Edition. This list includes PC-AM2RD790 - PURE CrossFireX 790FX, PC-AM2RX780 - PURE CrossFireX 770 and PI-AM2RS780G - Hybrid CrossFire 780G-based boards.

At the same time, we asked Sapphire’s PR representatives if these boards will be able to cope with 140W CPUs and we’ve learned that they will. We believe that with PC-AM2RD790 - PURE CrossFireX with 790FX chipset you are on the safe side, but you better not push these boards too much.

Some bios update might be necessary in order to make these new CPUs work on these boards, but at least 125W CPUs and 140W CPU will work in a non-overclocked environment.  Lorenzo Martone, Sapphire PR Manager for Mediterranean Countries, has confirmed that all Sapphire motherboards will work with 125W 9850 and 9750 quad-core CPUs.

With Phenom 9850 Black Edition thermals at 3 GHz+ you should be close to 200W TDP, and you need a lot of PWMs for that, just consider yourself warned, as overclocking Phenom 9850 Black edition might be a very dangerous business. It can burn the board even if it officially supports 125W Thermal design power.