Sadly too many people who have no clue what they are talking about?
VRM is not just about avoiding blowing out your motherboard. First off, a board with higher quality VRMs is simply going to last much, much longer. Now maybe I don't get my parents to buy my computer hardware like some people, but I expect my hardware to last (even if I flip it in 2 months, I expect it to be in good condition even though I do 24/7 computational analysis).
Secondly, and very importantly to people like myself who do cryptocoin mining on their main rigs, energy efficiency is important. Just as a power supply can be rated to be 80% efficient, or 90% efficient, so too a motherboard. Why would you use an Asrock Z77 Extreme4 with worse than 70% efficiency, when you can use a Gigabyte with well over 90% efficiency on extreme loads? The energy savings alone is quite substantial (in terms of price difference of motherboards) if you run 24/7 cpu intensive programs like I do.
Third, inefficieny = wasted heat. Mosfets are rated for how much waste they give off (among other things) - a mosfet that is taking in 100w and only giving 80w to the CPU, is going to expel 20w as heat (or even worse, in the case of motherboards like the Extreme4, a couple watts in sound, ie choke whine). That heat goes to your system.
Even delidded, Ivy and Haswell can run extremely hot if you push a higher overclock on it. My i7-3770K at 5ghz@1.55v consumed well over 200w - and that was AFTER it went through the VRM, with a UD5H my board still consumed a good 220-230w, which is still above 86% efficiency, but an Extreme4 is going to consume more like 280w from the motherboard (which in turn is 80-90% efficient from the psu/wall...). I don't need my CPU temps to go up exponentially because of increased case temperatures from a hot VRM. The difference in a VRM that's 70-80C like an Extreme4 will be at 1.5v, and a UD3H which will do it at 60C, will result in a good 5*C+ temp increase on your CPU (of course, depends on cooler, water loops a bit less affected).
Finally, yea, you DO need a good VRM. Low range boards like the MSI Z77A-G41, for example, would overheat
on near stock voltage, ie with a ~4.6ghz overclock on ~1.25v, my VRMs on the board got over 80*C! That's generally around when you hear coil whine... and yea, I heard LOTS of coil whine on that board. 90C+ is when you risk long term damage to the board due to PCB browning, but 80C+ is when you suffer serious performance degradation on the CPU - you need increased voltage to do the same thing, voltage is less stable and less clean, you got more ripple and noise... all bad things.
A mid-range board like a UD3H is going to hit a very toasty 60-70C on a high air overclock of 5ghz@1.5v+, god forbid you need more voltage or have a custom water loop and actually justify the expense by utilizing it and pushing 1.55v+. An Extreme4, on the other hand, is simply going to overheat at ~1.4v+, making the board only capable of a moderate ambient overclock - which is enough for most people, but again, why are you paying premium prices for a crappy board?
Even my cheap Pro3-68 with 2500k could run at 5000MHz.
Could you give a little more information before making useless comments? What voltage? For how long? Was it 24+ hours prime95 stable or just gaming stabled? What were the VRM temps? What was your power consumption? How efficient was the VRM running?
See, this is the problem. People say dumb things because they have no clue what they are talking about, when in reality their chip ran hotter because case temps were a good 10-20*C higher, their power consumption and thus powerbill was higher and thus would've just saved money after a year buying a better board (which often isn't even more expensive, in the case of boards like MSI or Asrock on Z77 or Biostar on P67).
Don't forget - higher temperatures alone, result in higher power consumption. All things equal, a chip running ~5ghz@1.5v, is going to consume a good 10-20w+ if it's just 10*C hotter. Just 20w on it's own, on average, will cost you $20 a year. How long do you use your computer?
So what, you say, $60 after 3 years isn't too much. No, but the point is why buy a Pro3 for $80 when you can get a Ud3H for only $40 more, and which is also going to run your RAM and northbridge more efficiently, you are going to be able to tweak your ram much more, you are going to be able to push higher overclocks (even with a bad chip, you can push more voltage, more overclock, provided you got a good enough cooler).
TLDR: Yes, VRM matters, it still matters. Power efficiency will matter no matter how 'cool' you think a chip runs, Ivy Bridge easily could surpass 200w+ overclocked (my i7-4770k was well over 230w on an air overclock) so don't tell me that they run 'cool' these days, why buy a crappy board when a superior board is the same price - BUY SMART, NOT EXPENSIVE.
Now in the grand scheme of things, your cpu or gpu choice makes a bigger difference, sure. But just like your heatsink, just like your CPU binning, a motherboard can limit you just as much. And lower end boards and some mid-range boards WILL NOT be able to handle a mid-range or higher overclock, plain and simple. They will overheat, causing increased ambient and cpu temps, less efficiency, higher power consumption, and in some cases get so hot that they throttle your overclock (ie all low end boards, most mid-range boards).
This is all a motherboard is about. Literally. For the same reason it would be stupid to buy $100+ power supplies if you don't push your system that hard, or to buy a crappy $100+ power supply instead of a higher quality one, its stupid to buy a bad motherboard. The extreme4 is a perfect example of terrible engineering, and aiming for marketing instead of actual usage. They wanted to play the phase count war, instead of make a quality VRM.
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