Vdroop variance - Abit IP35 Pro vs. IP35 Express

[GundamF91]

I used to have the IP35 Express, and I kept a detailed set of data on the Vdroop to document my OC efforts. Now I got the IP35 Pro, same rig for everything else, the Vdroop has decreased.

OC to 3.1Ghz, the IP35E vDroop is about about 0.03v on idle, and 0.05v on load. With IP35 Pro, the vDroop is only 0.01v on idle, and 0.03v on load. This is pretty big difference in my mind.

Does this mean that Pro is better? Maybe the solid capacitors and power regulators are better for handling power variances?

 

[superstition]

As far as I know, the more power phase thingamabobbers (cheaper motherboards have 3 or 4 phases) a motherboard has, the lower the vdroop. My ds3l has solid caps and it has a much higher droop.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: superstition
As far as I know, the more power phase thingamabobbers (cheaper motherboards have 3 or 4 phases) a motherboard has, the lower the vdroop. My ds3l has solid caps and it has a much higher droop.

Since vDroop is programmable (to a degree), it really depends on implementation and tuning more than anything. Solid caps make it worse, all other things equal, because the entire purpose of vDroop is to get away with using less bulk capacitance. Though 'solid' caps offer lower ESR over a wider temperature range, they also have less capacitance than good electrolytic caps of equal dimensions, and cost nearly twice as much to boot.

As a general proposition, it should be true that more output phases results in lower vDroop, it really doesn't work out that way in practice. Its not hard to find four phase designs with lower vDroop than motherboards with more costly six and eight phase designs. ASUS and Gigabyte have produced boards with really classy power supply designs that should be keeping vDroop to a best case minimum, but are no better or even worse than some 'cheaper' boards.

 

[kjboughton]

Vroop has nothing to do with the number of power delivery phases.

Intel power delivery design specifications include a requirement to maintain "load line resistance" within a small window. Some motherboard manufactures may choose to ignore these requirements to some degree or may lack the ability to control overall build tolerances to the extent necessary to limit vdroop to allowable levels. As such some boards, even runs withing a particular product line, may have more or less vdroop than others.

This has nothing to do with the quality and/or capabilities of a circuit. If the system is unable to provide enough power one of two things will happen:

1) one of more power delivery components will most likely overheat and fail, or
2) higher than expected current levels will drag down the controller and the system will shutdown when the programmable VID leaves the allowable regulation range (spontaneous reset).

The bottom line? - The level of vdroop is not a proper method for comparing two power delivery systems.

 

[superstition]

I updated the "vdroop - the final word" topic with your posts.