PC Buying Guide - March 2011

[Ishu Gupta]

IMO it's the cheap components playing havoc here.

Agree with this.

Post Cards from the Edge - AMD 780G, NVIDIA 790i, Gigabyte 680i - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News
4+1 vs. 8+2(8+1) Phase Power Design - XtremeSystems Forums

 

[nbaztec]

The numbers agree too. The guy @overclockers OCed his Thuban - a 1090T 3.2Ghz @ 1.325V to 4.0Ghz @ 1.475V

Calculating the new CPU wattage it comes out to be 200w, which was otherwise rated 125w.

This new wattage exceeded the standard 192w & at greater loads even the tolerance of 15%(220w), heck even 20%(230w). since the 125w rated Thubans are known to run at 190w at loads

*www.legitreviews.com/images/reviews/1289/power_consumption.jpg
Source
*images.anandtech.com/graphs/amdphenomiix6_042610231918/22638.png
Source

If you ask me, it was a disaster waiting to happen.

 

[The Sorcerer]

@Sorcy: This goes only when you OC right? coz these parts are often given some headroom (tolerance) for sudden surges of peak power.

Depends on the component like mosfets/VRMs. But you're forcing power through the 4 pin what's meant to be delivered properly through 8 pin. Its like my lane outside my house- cars are parked on both side of the road and buses come from both ends with cars behind them.

This pretty much explains why mosfet sinks are not put in such boards (one of the reasons) is because it won't make much difference as the inevitable will happen. Therefore maybe they decided not to put it, saves cost further. Sad sad luck if you picked such stuff based on stuff written on the board/box.

 

[nbaztec]

Agreed that a polyphase power delivery system is preferable to ease the load, but rather to make people(like me), who already have bought 125w proccy with a 4pin ATX, paranoid it's safe to say that unless someone doesn't OC to an alarming power usage (>190w) our rigs might not become working toasters.

 

[Ishu Gupta]

To sum up what I learned
8 phase - Recommended. Specially if you OC high on a 125+ W CPU.
4 phase - OK for less than 125W. Stock 125W. Low-med OC on high quality MOSFET/board.

 

[nbaztec]

To sum up what I learned
8 phase - Recommended. Specially if you OC high on a 125+ W CPU.
4 phase - OK for less than 125W. Stock 125W. Low-med OC on high quality MOSFET/board.

That's what the figures say.

 

[The Sorcerer]

8 phase - Recommended. Specially if you OC high on a 125+ W CPU.

Provided they are actual 8 phase but again, which of the are true 8 phase? Referring to the xs link again:

Whether it is a blatant lie depends on what does "phase" mean for you. ASUS and Gigabyte seem to think that inductor = phase, but rest of the world knows that "phase" is "one part or portion in recurring or serial activities or occurrences logically connected within a greater process, often resulting in an output or a change." (Wikipedia). Phase is not something that exists on motherboard PCB, it's a parameter of the voltage control process. So for most people, yes, ASUS and Gigabyte and many other manufacturers lie about their PWM designs.

I am not saying companies will follow the same funda, but its a "good to know" information. Refer to 890GPA-UD3H's layout as an example.

It is a 4+1 phase design but if you see it comes with an 8 pin eps connector. This is a proper example of a board with 4+1 phase properly implemented. I think Asus has a board like this- one of the 890 pro/usb3 types. Less stress+ better components and Precision OV on the board- perfect example of how a good board compatible with 125w should be like.

These days I am curious if Gigabyte's precision OV works similar to EPU on asus boards, but sadly the information about EPU is somewhat vague.

I am not saying that they are doing this now, but don't expect a board with decent enough component for a lesser price.

 

[nbaztec]

Either way for MSI claiming to be OC friendly - is pure BS. Atleast on enthusiast boards they should've gone 8+1/16+1. If any MSI board developing engineer is reading this, kindly sit on this ..|..
As for the burnt out mobo: If you have a 890FX, a Phenom II X6 (that too a BE), an efficient Water Cooling & a sane curious human mind who wouldn't OC. That being said 8+1 is bare minimum on such boards.

 

[The Sorcerer]

^^ Read up .

Speaking of MSI I've been told that their Dr. MOS funda is for real and such types is adopted in certain Gigabyte (and maybe Asus? Not sure) did it on atleast couple of boards- one of them is the x58A-UD9. MSI needs to tighten their quality control for starters, things will improve eventually once it comes to their attention.

They do make pretty decent cards and their GPU utility for stress testing (kombuster) and overclocking (after burner) is brilliant, more brilliant that it does work with other cards. Unlike Gigabyte's DES which has a chip on the hardware hence software will work on GBT boards and Asus' EPU/TPU which are 2 different chips on their board whose software can work only their board, msi did something honest that it works as it should. They could have tried to justify by implementing a hocus pocus chip, but they didn't. Sadly, its antics like mentioned above over shadows such implementations . Tech and marketing/PR at times don't go hand in hand. Sucks big time.

 

[Ishu Gupta]

kindly sit on this ..|..

 

[Jaskanwar Singh]

sorcerer then a 4+1 phase with 8 pin eps12v connector will work fine with 125w?

The ASUS M4A89GTD PRO USB3 is 8+2 phase.

The ASUS M4A89GTD PRO USB3 is 8+2 phase.

which is a good cpu cooler in 2-3k range?
Noctua NH-U12P SE2 @ 3.7k is ideal in 3-4k range?

 

[nbaztec]

^From what all I've gathered, 4+1 will suffice as long as you don't OC a 125w. 4+1 phase on an 8 pin will go in reducing the stress on the remaining pins, since it won't split the phase among the pins, but the current. But this is from an engineer's pov, only sorcerer can tell it's real world implications.

 

[The Sorcerer]

I haven't tested/seen that board- yet.

But I can say for sure 890GPA UD3H is a nicely made board and it does what you want it to do without breaking the bank paired with an hexa core(price is bit on a higher side, GBT India should concentrate on being in sync with price rates in India and decrease random availability issues big time). Even when it came with f1 bios and when x6 came out, unlike most boards, this did run x6, but detected the processor as unknown and as an x4. To add more, it was stable nevertheless and since it was necessary at those times that newer bios were flashed to run x6 properly, it shows how good the bios is. The 890gpa you get now is from newer rev 2.1 and hence with newer bioses.

 

[Ishu Gupta]

^
Hyper 212+ @ 1.8k
is brilliant in the range.
Cooler Master Hyper 212 plus review

9* C more than the Noctua on 3600 MHz QX9770 processor clock frequency with 1.4 volts.

 

[Jaskanwar Singh]

sorcy 890GPA UD3H at 8.2k while the ASUS is at 9.5k. and the MSI 890FXA GD70 still uses 4 pin etx...

thanks for the review ishu

 

[The Sorcerer]

Okay. Then those shopping sites need to update prices .

Makes sense to pick up 890GPA-UD3H+ hexa core if you're going the amd way. If one can stretch budget a bit, he could try grabbing an x58 combo with sabertooth or wait for Jan.

Anything less? i3 530/540 with a decent enough H55M board (s2h/usb3) will suffice.

 

[aby geek]

sorceror ,jas and nbaztec sir i still couldnt get all the phase power design problem.how to recognize such boards.

 

[nbaztec]

^It should be mentioned:
1) 4-pin 12V ATX or 8-pin 12V ATX/ETS Socket
2) Power Phase: 4+1/8+1/8+2/16+1

A board may only have permutations of the above entities.

 

[aby geek]

can you give an example of a mainstream board specifications.

 

[Ishu Gupta]

Post Cards from the Edge - AMD 780G, NVIDIA 790i, Gigabyte 680i - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

Part 2 of that thing

Post Cards from the Edge Update - AMD 780G - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

While a board’s PWM/MOSFET count generally indicates its capability to handle a particular load rating, it does not always indicate its ability to properly regulate, correct, and deliver clean power. That is why a board with a properly designed four-phase system can offer improved quality/performance over a poorly designed five- or six-phase system. All of our boards in the roundup utilize a decent three- or four-phase PWM design, with the exception of the ASRock board that features a five-phase design. Does this mean that the ASRock board will handle the 9850BE without a problem? Not necessarily, as there is more to our story than PWM design.

Power Phases regulate the voltages and other stuff going to your CPU.

4+1 stands for, 4 for the CPU, and 1 For the memory.

If you have more phases, each phase will have to do less to out put the same amount of power.

ex. you have a 100w cpu load, and you have a 4 phase design on the CPU. Each phase would have to regulate 25w.

If you had 8 phases, each phase would have to regulate only 12.5w.

4 Phase designs are not known to hold up well under high overclocks, but MSI doesn't see it that way, and continues to use ony 4 phases on even their high end boards (890FXA-GD70). If you don't overclock too hard, I would not worry about having a 4 phase board, and any processor will run fine at stock on a 4 phase board

The "+1" after the cpu phases doesn't really matter unless you are seriously overclocking your ram.

Sorcy has made me paranoid. I was going to buy a new rig in a month or so and it feels like everything is failing. Can't stop googling. There doesn't seem to be a final conclusion.

If someone is a electrical student *www.thetechrepository.com/showthread.php?t=126.

Looks like sorcy posted this on Chip too. And he got a thumbs up. LOL