Originally posted by: RallyMaster
What does the 16 phase power actually do for people that don't overclock? Longer lasting hardware?
Absolutely, if you use your motherboard longer than the typical MTTB/MTTF rating of current-standard power path components, which range between one and two thousand years @ 85'C for the decent commodity stuff. Figure at least five thousand years minimum for the higher grade stuff.
So if your PC is still chugging along 1000 years from now, that special super-duper 16-phase power supply should allow at least another 1000 years or so of trouble free operation, whereas those inferior 4, 6, and 8 phase designs would probably start to fail around the 1000-year mark, give or take.
Of course, your capacitors will have become fully derated after not more than 20 years, but hey, capacitors are easier to replace than ICs, right? Think of the savings, you won't need to buy a new motherboard for at least 2000 years! Just replace the capacitors every 10 ~ 20 years. Now that's a truly "green" solution, only putting one motherboard into a landfill every 2000 years. Kudos to ASUS for this highly practical feature. ASUS is leading the way to saving the environment - 400+ motherboards at a time!
The ASUS marketing gimmick evangelists have evangelized a little too much and spilled the true reason for creating exorbitant number of output phases that vastly exceed design power requirements:
The reliability and dependability increased with the number of channels, in this case instead of 160A being forced through all the part components of a Single-rail, each of the 16 channel only had to withstand 1/16th or 10A per channel.
Distributing the same load over more channels means less loading per channel, thereby permitting the use of cheaper commodity components. How much more expensive do you reckon a 25A channel costs to design/build relative to 15A channel? Depending on the components in question, it can realistically triple the BOM cost. See the benefit of 16 phases now?
More channels are definitely better...up to the point where they no longer are better. At that point, all that more channels do is permit one to get away with using more plentiful and much cheaper commodity grade power path components with less lead time, or market it as one of the super-duper features that give ASUS the distinction of consistently setting the highest average selling price (ASP) of any Taiwanese manufacturer for years now.
Intel's own voltage regulator specification and design guidance indicate that anywhere between four and six phase designs should be sufficient for any current Intel processor up to the maximum specified peak loadline rating of 150A for 775_VR_CONFIG_05B models (130A continuous). Intel is never 'optimistic' or unrealistic in its design guidance. It always bases its recommendations or specified minimums on sensible design and manufacturing assumptions that should be perfectly safe in most configurations when properly implemented and tested for compliance.
Currently, only a handful of Intel processors fall within the maximum peak loadline specified by Intel VRD 11.1, such as QX9775. This is not the peak current that
will be drawn from those processors. It defines the upper limit for an entire CPU package/architectural family. Nehalem is anticipated to have ~10% higher power consumption at the same frequency, which should translate into a peak loadline of not more than 170A. Of course, Nehalem doesn't run in any current motherboard so it is irrelevant if Intel releases a processor two years from now that requires 170A. It won't work in any motherboard available today due to socket, pin-out, and other differences.
BTW, numerous motherboards are supporting the entire range of Intel (and AMD) processors with no less stability and no less reliability, based on good four and five phase power designs. It is true that these motherboards would not support more than moderate overclocks with high-end processors, which is why Gigabyte, DFI, ABIT, MSI, and others are implementing very capable six and eight phase designs that can overclock with the best of them.
Again, the reason for having more than 10 phases today and the foreseeable future for single processor boards has absolutely nothing to do with reliability or dependability. In order to preserve power efficiency under light loads carried by fewer phases (dynamic phase control), you must reduce the maximum design power (i.e. granularity) of each phase. And being able to use cheaper commodity power components is nice, too (for the manufacturer).
