The ghost is out of the bottle

[Jism]

For many many years, i always had interest in hardware, technical information and all that. But lately, and i'm talking about a broad of review websites, youtube channels, are creating so much fuss over such little small things, that i actually stop reading the nonsense that people are creating in order to keep their views, hits and clicks in a upgoing trend. I'm not saying that the information is incorrect, it's just creating alot of fuss on something that its hard to even keep up in the first place. You know motherboard AIB's come up with the 570 series and state for example, that the VRM design would be better and more future proof. Mkay. So you have a breed of reviewers hammering on how important the 570 series are, and how good the new VRM build quality looks like, and that you almost need the latest, most expensive, piece of hardware you can get your hands on these days, otherwise the world collapses, or some shit.

Well the truth is, you dont need a extended, overbuild, 14 phase VRM to run the latest 3900x on your platform. See https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-ryzen-9-3900x-tested-on-cheap-b350-motherboard/ > it's actually pretty normal for a VRM to hit 100 degrees or even 138 degrees on that particular OC'ed test. If it's good for the components right next to it on the long term is a different question. There are a few very good review sites that really go indepth in reviews, compliments for that, but those are a very few. You know a 4 phase VRM could offer plenty of joy and headroom compared to a 12 phase VRM. The difference is mainly the stability of the voltage curve when going overclocking. But again; if the 4 phase VRM is designed properly and offers for example, a high switching frequency, it is just as stable as going for a 14 phase. My opinion: VRM's are done, there's no myth these days anymore like the days of the FX, where a 8350 would throttle because the VRM cannot keep up or overheats.

CPU's these days can actually communicate with the VRM, and give a both peak and absolute long term power delivery. Based on that it's pretty much impossible to go over spec in a stock configuration, even with XFR going full blast. Okay, so your an OC'er, and you want the best of the best. Well: AMD cpu's in particular are pretty much at the limits of what the silicon actually can do. And even if you LN2 the snot out of the CPU, there's no way you could fully utilize a boards VRM since the colder the CPU goes in this case, the less power it actually needs. We will get a 16 core / 32 threads in the future, but again, i really dont believe that a VRM would be a limitation at this point. The days of burning, blowing or exploding VRM's are far behind us.

Same as on Videocards. If you take the Vega into account, and look at the VRM's design. You dont need anything more bigger then that. Even the Vega 56 proved to run over 250% spec on https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3382-rtx-2070-versus-power-modded-vega-56 shows that build quality these days is better then ever. No need for a external VRM source either. I see alot of tests, benches, reviews, going on the obvious these days. Derbauer for example, putting video's out that for the masses, are pretty useless. A soldered IHS, going through all the effort of doing LM, and have a result of barely 2 degrees difference. Really.

I'm kind of fed up by these hardware channels in particular, some who never finished anything electrical degree, but still rant on how AIB's or whatever should design a VRM 'different' lol. It's just to create more and more fuss. It took a week for me to settle down on the 5700 and 3x00 series reviews where so much dust was created.

 

[B-Riz]

Bruh, I got you covered.

Gammaxx 400, AS Ceramique 2, 3900X, Auto CPU Voltage, Auto PBO, Asus Prime B350-Plus, 5007 BIOS, 8GB 2400, Corsair AX860i

 

[Jism]

Yes that i already knew, that a 350 board is capable of driving a 12 core behemoth.

 

[DrMrLordX]

@Jism

Nobody claimed that the boards would blow up or that the world would end. The claim was that there would be throttling on weak VRMs, which is mostly true. The only "genie" that has popped out of the bottle (ghost?) is that Matisse isn't boosting very high right now unless you have amazing cooling and the right UEFI.

 

[gorobei]

the issue was never that the board would explode, and throttling is more a function of cpu cooling.

the real issue is that a 4 phase is ok so long as the vrm has enough cooling to maintain a certain temp. vrm mosfets(and capacitors) will start to fail when operated at temps beyond the specs for extended periods of time. techpowerup's demo is a one time test that doesnt really address the real consequence of operating temps and component failure over extended periods of time.

mosfet or smart powerstage n-p doping will fail at 150C, and most have an operating temp of 125C. that is Tjunction and not Tcase (cheaper vrm parts have even worse temp ratings). if the vrm in tpu's test was hitting 110 to 120 externally then the transistors inside the ceramic packaging were certainly higher, possibly over the 125C spec. the more time spent over op temp the shorter the life of the components. your mb will fail sooner the harder you push the vrm mosfets and the heat density on the mb pcb will bleed over into the caps eroding your filtering and increasing your voltage ripple. overclocks fail over time because of this principle.
a higher end vrm with more phases and more mosfets reduces the heat per phase and the components never reach anywhere near the 125 critical temp.


are mb makers going a little overboard with x570, yeah probably. some premium boards are excessive but will hold up to a 16c/32t and anything amd comes out with later, though ryzen4000 on am4 is seriously in question.
that and some of the premium boards for intel 9900k had vrms that would never come close to holding up an overclock means there is a need for better scrutiny of vrm layouts. you can run nitrous on your 4 banger commuter car, but without a ton of mods and specialized parts it isnt going to last long. one run by tech powerup is representative of nothing.