Power Processing Circuitry & PWB Layout on DFI Ultra-D

[wwswimming]

i noticed that people are having some good luck OCing with the Asus P5N32 & A8N32 MB's. these MB's are known for having 8-phase power.

admittedly, "8-phase" could be just another marketing phrase. but, in this case, it works good !

well, the DFI ultra-D works good too. i'm wondering if there's any electrical engineering folks with power supply design experience on the Forums that have had a chance to look at & use the ultra-D.

i'm thinking it must have good, or at least adequate, power processing circuitry - because that's one of the design things that makes a board a good OCer - and the ultra-D is a good OC'er !

from experience working with RF & microwave circuits, i know that above 50 MHz, circuit board layout can make a HUGE difference to circuit performance. well, at 2+ GHz, each of these Motherboards is basically operating at microwave frequencies.

back, "before the age of computers", when we were cutting artwork for microwave circuits using rubylith etc., we paid a LOT of attention to designing the traces "just right" - e.g., a trace that is gently rounded produces fewer reflections than one that takes a sharp right turn.

well, now that we know the ultra-D is a good OC'er, i'm wondering WHY it's a good OC'er. i'm thinking it might have something to do with ~
* power-processing circuitry
* layout
* material choices (we used glass teflon instead of G4 on higher frequency boards, for example)
* quality of the caffeine used by the design team. (just kidding. but not entirely !)

any experienced circuit design folks that have a hunch why the ultra-D OC's so well ? like, which specific design details make a difference.

also, have any of you had a chance to probe the ultra-D with a network analyzer, e.g. traces from the CPU to memory.

one of the other things that has affected a lot of designs i've worked on is the arrangement of power planes. do any of the circuit design folks here know anything about details of the ultra-D circuit board power planes that might explain why it performs better than other boards ?