What's up with the crummy VRMs?

[GorbazTheDragon]

Was looking through motherboards for a rig my friend is building, ATM eyeing either R5 1600x or i3 8100/i5 8400 or maybe a 8350k since he plays a lot of older single thread games and probably won't put 6 cores to much use. But so far didn't manage to find a single motherboard with a decent VRM...

Looked through some of the lists on hardwareluxx and pruned through forum threads and there seems tp be absolutely nothing decent around the $100-150 price range.

For the 1151 boards a Asus seems to have joined Gigabyte in shipping a bunch of mid range boards with SiRa series fets in dualed (non doubled) 4 phase configs. Remember the garbage performance of gigabyte Z97 boards when they dropped their IR powerstage VRMs? My brother's rig in fact uses a H87 board with a quad phase IR3550 VRM which performs great from what I've tested with my 4790k, and that thing was under $90 for basically the whole time it sold...

Basically the cheapest Z370 VRM with decent integrated powerstages is the EVGA FTW which seems to have a dodgy LLC setup, followed by the ROG Hero.

I really don't understand how on a platform that is more power critical than previous generations these boards are making such huge leaps backwards in VRM quality.

Then as for AM4 the only real option seems to be the asus x370/x470 prime pro, the AX370 gaming5 has pretty subpar customer reviews and looks pretty avoidable, and the x370 taichi which is more expensive than both Asus options.

Is a 6 phase IR3553 VRM really the best I can get for my money these days?

 

[Vayra86]

Asrock all the way in the midrange buddy. Extreme4 is a superb budget friendly choice

I suppose the money goes to flashy heatsinks, a good audio section with alc1220 and RGB these days because you are right about the GB and Asus lineups

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

Not sure how seriously I am supposed to take you seriously because those fets are even worse than the SiRa12s lol

 

[Vayra86]

Not sure how seriously I am supposed to take you seriously because those fets are even worse than the SiRa12s lol

Nope, they get good results, not sure what you are on about...

 

[Vario]

There are two VRM OEMs used for AsRock upper midrange, the Sinopower or Fairchild. I believe the Fairchild is considered better. I have the Sinopower one because I can see the text on the VRMs near the ram. I have had good overclocking results with the Sinopower. Z370 Taichi and 8600K I achieved 4.8 and ~1.2V. The ram overclocked well too I was able to post to 4300. I didn't bother to dial in stability on the ram. My system has been at stock for the last couple months because I cannot tell one bit whether it is overclocked or not in any of the games I play so why bother?
https://valid.x86.fr/qpyumu

If I were you I would buy the Asrock Extreme 4 or the Asrock Fatal1ty K6 or the Asrock Taichi.
Here is a link to the Z370/390 VRM discussion: https://www.overclock.net/forum/6-intel-motherboards/1638955-z370-z390-vrm-discussion-thread.html
VRM table: https://www.overclock.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=99753
Recorded Temperatures: https://www.overclock.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=99745

AsRock Z370 Mobo comparison
https://www.asrock.com/mb/compare.asp?Models=Z370 Extreme4,Fatal1ty Z370 Gaming K6,Z370 Taichi

Taichi gets you Wifi if that is important to you, it is to me.

 

[EsaT]

I suppose the money goes to flashy heatsinks, a good audio section with alc1220 and RGB these days because you are right about the GB and Asus lineups

Don't you mean to sabotaging effectiveness of heatsinks?
All those flat covers on top of heatsinks just obstruct airflow to hot parts under them.
Also having actual ribbed surface would make heatsinks more effective per size.

Really miss the times when heatsinks weren't designed by marketroids.
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/asus_p5q_deluxe/3.htm#&gid=1&pid=21059
Though already that had South Bridge heatsink sabotaged by that useless sticker:
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/asus_p5q_deluxe/3.htm#&gid=1&pid=21079

 

[Vario]

Pull the heatsinks and put other heatsinks on it if it is that important to you.

 

[Vayra86]

Don't you mean to sabotaging effectiveness of heatsinks?
All those flat covers on top of heatsinks just obstruct airflow to hot parts under them.
Also having actual ribbed surface would make heatsinks more effective per size.

Really miss the times when heatsinks weren't designed by marketroids.
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/asus_p5q_deluxe/3.htm#&gid=1&pid=21059
Though already that had South Bridge heatsink sabotaged by that useless sticker:
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/asus_p5q_deluxe/3.htm#&gid=1&pid=21079

I just look at data and it shows pretty frosty temps on all Asrock boards' VRM, there are some ribs on those sinks as well

But youre right in a general sense, lots of boards with aesthetics > performance design out there

 

[Gasaraki]

Was looking through motherboards for a rig my friend is building, ATM eyeing either R5 1600x or i3 8100/i5 8400 or maybe a 8350k since he plays a lot of older single thread games and probably won't put 6 cores to much use. But so far didn't manage to find a single motherboard with a decent VRM...

Looked through some of the lists on hardwareluxx and pruned through forum threads and there seems tp be absolutely nothing decent around the $100-150 price range.

For the 1151 boards a Asus seems to have joined Gigabyte in shipping a bunch of mid range boards with SiRa series fets in dualed (non doubled) 4 phase configs. Remember the garbage performance of gigabyte Z97 boards when they dropped their IR powerstage VRMs? My brother's rig in fact uses a H87 board with a quad phase IR3550 VRM which performs great from what I've tested with my 4790k, and that thing was under $90 for basically the whole time it sold...

Basically the cheapest Z370 VRM with decent integrated powerstages is the EVGA FTW which seems to have a dodgy LLC setup, followed by the ROG Hero.

I really don't understand how on a platform that is more power critical than previous generations these boards are making such huge leaps backwards in VRM quality.

Then as for AM4 the only real option seems to be the asus x370/x470 prime pro, the AX370 gaming5 has pretty subpar customer reviews and looks pretty avoidable, and the x370 taichi which is more expensive than both Asus options.

Is a 6 phase IR3553 VRM really the best I can get for my money these days?

Huh? You're running R5 1600x or i3 8100/i5 8400. Why do you need overkill VRM? Do you know how VRMs work?

 

[nomdeplume]

I've been gaming on an 8400 with the stock cooler never breaking 1000 rpm. Neither board or processor have gone above 38C. Whether they used premium parts on the VRM or just used lesser ones more efficiently is of little concern to me. Obviously whatever the heatsinks and the parts under them are doing must work decent enough.

Maybe wait and see what comes of the Z370 update?

 

[newtekie1]

The reality is that the current chips don't pull nearly as much power, even the high end ones even when they are overclocked. So we don't need the insane VRM setups that we used to.

You are going to hit the thermal limit long before the VRMs start to break a sweat.

 

[Bones]

Was looking through motherboards for a rig my friend is building, ATM eyeing either R5 1600x or i3 8100/i5 8400 or maybe a 8350k since he plays a lot of older single thread games and probably won't put 6 cores to much use. But so far didn't manage to find a single motherboard with a decent VRM...

Looked through some of the lists on hardwareluxx and pruned through forum threads and there seems tp be absolutely nothing decent around the $100-150 price range.

For the 1151 boards a Asus seems to have joined Gigabyte in shipping a bunch of mid range boards with SiRa series fets in dualed (non doubled) 4 phase configs. Remember the garbage performance of gigabyte Z97 boards when they dropped their IR powerstage VRMs? My brother's rig in fact uses a H87 board with a quad phase IR3550 VRM which performs great from what I've tested with my 4790k, and that thing was under $90 for basically the whole time it sold...

Basically the cheapest Z370 VRM with decent integrated powerstages is the EVGA FTW which seems to have a dodgy LLC setup, followed by the ROG Hero.

I really don't understand how on a platform that is more power critical than previous generations these boards are making such huge leaps backwards in VRM quality.

Then as for AM4 the only real option seems to be the asus x370/x470 prime pro, the AX370 gaming5 has pretty subpar customer reviews and looks pretty avoidable, and the x370 taichi which is more expensive than both Asus options.

Is a 6 phase IR3553 VRM really the best I can get for my money these days?

I'd be more worried if the VRM's were Nikos - Those have a proven track record of failure in boards such as MSI and Biostar which seems to use them almost exclusively. MSI's are famous for VRM failures and every model that had issues were made with Nikos VRMs.
I've even owned a total of 4 MSI's, all are now dead from VRM failure and yes, they were all running Nikos MOSFETs. 2 of the 4 died within 6 months, one made it probrably a year and it died at 100% stock settings with a chip MSI claimed the board could handle without issue, namely an 1100T in a 790FX-GD 70 board. The last one died much later but wasn't used much either.

Speaking of these failures, MSI didn't even bother to make changes to the setup, just carried it over ot the next gen (890 FX) boards and those also experienced a multitude of VRM failures. MSI was more or less denying the problems even though there were MANY documented cases of it happening across these models - The only thing mentioned about it by MSI was the boards would handle the Hex core chips and be fine , which wasn't the case with many of them, mine included.
I will never buy another MSI..... And the Biostar that died on me was less than a year old when it did (TA 990FXE) and it was made with Nikos components too.

There is a reason these two makes are cheaper than the others overall within the same model class when it comes down to it.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

Hmmm, looks like I was mistaking the z370 e4 and z170 version.

I'll take as an example that 100-150w is pretty typical power draw for intel quads on air cooling so if you were to run the 6 phase z170 extreme4 you would end up running pretty close to the 120A (20 per phase) practical current limit of the fets. The SiRa12DPs GB used in the z97 line was notorious for becoming unstable at very modest OCs and those fets have faster switch times and lower RDSon. A bunch of the "mid range" boards use 4 phase systems with limited heatsinks and similarly mediocre components...

Also you need to push up the tdp limits on the chips pretty substantially to maintain the advertised boost speeds.

Either way the Z370 extreme4 looks like a good choice but again is pretty steeply priced.

I'm not asking for insane 12+ phase VRMs with 60A per phase current capability, just realistically scaled VRMs with decent quality components and sufficient margins to ensure a long lifetime.

 

[eidairaman1]

Was looking through motherboards for a rig my friend is building, ATM eyeing either R5 1600x or i3 8100/i5 8400 or maybe a 8350k since he plays a lot of older single thread games and probably won't put 6 cores to much use. But so far didn't manage to find a single motherboard with a decent VRM...

Looked through some of the lists on hardwareluxx and pruned through forum threads and there seems tp be absolutely nothing decent around the $100-150 price range.

For the 1151 boards a Asus seems to have joined Gigabyte in shipping a bunch of mid range boards with SiRa series fets in dualed (non doubled) 4 phase configs. Remember the garbage performance of gigabyte Z97 boards when they dropped their IR powerstage VRMs? My brother's rig in fact uses a H87 board with a quad phase IR3550 VRM which performs great from what I've tested with my 4790k, and that thing was under $90 for basically the whole time it sold...

Basically the cheapest Z370 VRM with decent integrated powerstages is the EVGA FTW which seems to have a dodgy LLC setup, followed by the ROG Hero.

I really don't understand how on a platform that is more power critical than previous generations these boards are making such huge leaps backwards in VRM quality.

Then as for AM4 the only real option seems to be the asus x370/x470 prime pro, the AX370 gaming5 has pretty subpar customer reviews and looks pretty avoidable, and the x370 taichi which is more expensive than both Asus options.

Is a 6 phase IR3553 VRM really the best I can get for my money these days?

Ask @buildzoid here or look through his page for motherboard reviews/suggestions...
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrwObTfqv8u1KO7Fgk-FXHQ

 

[dj-electric]

Its all about choosing the right board these days. Every price category has its good ones, so i wouldn't be worried too much.
Its about learning how to avoid the bad ones.

 

[Vario]

Its all about choosing the right board these days. Every price category has its good ones, so i wouldn't be worried too much.
Its about learning how to avoid the bad ones.

Thats the truth. Every brand seems to have good and bad. A starting point is to ask around, read the Overclock.net motherboard subforums and read the newegg 'critical' reviews.
I think a motherboard investment is a good one compared to other PC hardware. For one thing, the quality boards seem to last longer. Secondly, if you keep the box, documents, and accessories, you can sell it for nearly what you paid for it a few years down then line when you upgrade next because at that time buyers will pay anything for an EOL socket motherboard that is no longer being produced just to fix their machines.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

Call it nostalgia but it was way easier to pick out decent Z87 and even AM3+ boards back in the day... and that was barely 4 years ago.

I do hope that there are some more relatively barebones boards with at least mid range VRMs for the z390 boards. As good as the power draw is at modest clocks, these 6/8 core parts are going to pull a lot of current when you push them, definitely substantially more than the Ryzens.

 

[jboydgolfer]

there seems tp be absolutely nothing decent around the $100-150 price range.

Asrock extreme4 z370 is a spectacular motherboard, but if he's not going for high-end overclocking it would be a serious overkill. They sell for around $160 mark so finding anything in the price range your listing that is decent will be absolutely no problem whatsoever.

Asrock pro seriesfor example, They sell for under $120 and are very capable motherboards

Personally I always purchase asrock, regardless of CPU manufacturer they are great boards, & my VrM's are cooled with actual aluminum heatsinks, not the aesthetic only plastic/rubber trash you find on many other boards

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

The one you linked seems to be an MSI one with a pretty weak 4 phase affair, I was looking at the asrock pro4 as it does have 8 sets of fets and chokes although it seems to be only a 4 phase without proper doubling and is only partially sinked.

There really isn't much choice as far as I can tell which is rather concerning because I am looking at possibly getting a 6 or 8 core CPU some time early next year and I don't really want to drop 200+ quid on some RoG board which is crammed with features I won't use.

 

[DysphoricSmile]

I am a thread necromancer by trade, I know.
I have the ASRock Z370 Gaming K6 - I have had it and my COU since October 2017. I am running an i7-8700k, delidded with Conductonaut and a Noctua NH-D15 inside an insanely well ventilated case (Self modded mesh fronted Carbide C200r with 4x 120mm and 4x 140mm case fans) - at 5.1 GHZ all core, 48x Ringbus - and Prime95 cannot overload my VRM. I mine Monero with my CPU (have been for 3+ years now) when not gaming, and the VRM stays below 50 C even when my room is hot. My CPU hits around 60 C with optimum XMR miner setup.

I use AIDA 64 for stability testing, with a little Prime95 setting the FFTs to 1344 to 4096 - I can and have run the "Small FFT" setting, and it does run, though it errors out after 20 mins or so, 1 to 3 workers will stop one at a time for some reason. I check VRM temps with HWInfo and HWMonitor, and neither show temps higher than about 81 C at worst - and I have YET to get an over power flag while running ADIA 64 FPU for 2+ hours (hottest and hardest test to pass) - I do the other tests afterward, CPU+ FPU, then CPU, FPU, and Cache, and finally I add RAM to the mix for 1.5+ hours each. And of course I maxed out all power planes in BIOS. My 5.1 GHZ OC is with a 1.35 vcore (1.356 in CPU-z) - so far I have left my RAM alone at 3200 16-16-16-36. I also PURPOSELY do NOT run Spectre fixes - as that slows down FPS, so I am fairly sure my 8700k would beat any 10600k at the same clocks!
People worry about that a bit too much, just don't allow shady stuff to run on your PC - and if you are also a home user/gamer - you REALLY have NOTHING to worry about! So far there are ZERO reports of Hackers actually using Spectre on anyone, and if they were to do so, they would target an institution OR a very rich person, so some average pleb.

Also FYI everyone, the power phases are doubled. So there are ACTUALLY only 5x CPU Vcore PWM signals, but they each have 2 MOSFETs, 2 Chokes, and 2 Caps. There are, in total, 10 phases WORTH of CPU power, and in fact this has faster transient response - and benefits over Doublers in pure Frequency! It loses SOME efficiency compare to 10 discreet power phases, but in reality we are talking 5 to 15 watts at most - and only in VERY low load scenarios. And if you want to count discreet phase components, there are actually 14 phases worth, 10 for CPU, 2 for GPU, 1 for VCCSA and 1 for VCCIO. These two rarely use even 20 watts total, yet ASRock gave them both VRM cooling, and their 60 Amp chokes. The VCCSA and VCCIO on this board are an unknown quality - same for memory MOSFETs - they are identical. Both use a TINY chip for high side and another one for low side - I have TRIED to look these MOSFETs up, but their marking are a dead end.

The TLR of this is that even the ASRock Z370 Extreme4 is good enough for an i9-9900k to lock to 5 GHZ - as long as you aren't trapping your PC in an airtight glass coffin as so many cases are anymore...
(Airflow >> Aesthetics - I do not need to see inside my PC while I am gaming, I ONLY need to know everything is running cool and fast!)

It is funny now, ASRock were the ONLY company that offered a GOOD VRM for $170 or less ($170 with a $10 mail rebate is what I paid in 2017) on Z370, but now with Z490 they seem like they could not care much less, BuildZoid has SMASHED their ENTIRE Z490 LINEUP! It LACKS Input Filtering for some stupid reason which ALL of their AMD and Z390 and earlier boards have!

I guess they looked at 10th gen Z490 as a "Fly over State" because Ryzen 5000 is coming SOON and it is badass in every way it would seem - plus Intel is not going to be interesting again til Socket 1700 - with "Z590" or whatever they call the 12th gen boards - with their (up to) 8 Big "Golden Cove" based CPUs, and (up to) 8 Small "Gracemont" cores (BTW - preliminary results show Gracemont is as fast or FASTER per clock as a Skylake core - aka what Intel is still using in the 10 series!) - I see those Big.Small "EVO" Cores are Intel FINALLY getting interesting as hell again, with (likely) a 16 core, 24 thread CPU!
They could Hyperthread the Gracemont Small cores as well, they ARE as fast per clock - and have all the instructions of Skylake including AVX 2 - but Intel will likely see better performance with 8 Big hyperthreaded CPU and 8 Small non-SMT CPUs - as that would make them quicker to finish whatever task they are running.

 

[X71200]

I wish you could simply low quality post a message because there's so much sided information besides the fact that others explained the same point in more basic posts 2.5 years ago.

 

[mstenholm]

Any post with that many capital letters should, by default, be blocked . Sure no need to dig up a 2 year old post on a subject that has moved on.