Z490 motherboard VRM list

[GorbazTheDragon]

LGA1200 VRM list

400-series 2020-09-05,LGA1200 VRM list by /u/qhfreddy,Thanks to asdkj1740 @OCN for compiling many sources in this thread: <a href="https://www.overclock.net/forum/6-intel-motherboards/1746916-1440a-madness-z490-vrm-discussion-thread-v2-5-6-5-20-a.html">https://www.overclock.net/forum/6-intel-mot...

docs.google.com

Hi all, since the other day I could not find any VRM lists that provided a satisfactory overview of the VRM situation on LGA1200 motherboards, I decided to start one myself... I have put in most of the boards already, will probably go fish for some sources next week for the few that are missing...

Credits:

• asdkj1740@OCN for compiling a shortlist with many sources
• Cautilus, Sinhardware, and all the other people who have previously made VRM lists for making useful starting points and giving me many ideas
• Buildzoid from AHOC for pioneering useful metrics for VRM performance
• All the sources for taking their time to look under the heatsinks and/or test the VRMs themselves

Some key points:

• Format based on older VRM lists such as those by Sinhardware (Haswell and earlier) and Cautilus (AM4).
• Quick and useful reference for approximate VRM performance, where possible checked against real test results...
• Most useful figures taken from datasheets (e.g maximum efficiency current of powerstages)
• Links to datasheets and reviews where possible.
• Additional sheets for individual component quality to be able to better estimate performance of untested VRMs.

To Do (in no particular order):

• Finish formatting
• More test results
• Non Z490 boards
• Add secondary VRM info
• Finish VRM performance/efficiency figures
• Find datasheets for TDA214xx and ISL993xx powerstages
• Expand powerstage, drmos, and mosfet ratings sheets
• Info on capacitor arrangement (?)
• Warnings for bad performance (?)
• AHOC ripple measurements (?)
• Memory OC performance info (?)
• General OC performance info (?)

 

[Space Lynx]

+rep well done! I did see a video this morning from Hardware UNboxing with z490 mobo comparisons. MSI Z490 A Pro at $159 is best bang for buck... beats out a lot of the more expensive motherboards from other brands even.

picture courtesy of youtube hardware unboxed channel:

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

Thanks, currently I've only put the TPU and HUB results for the VRM performance... I'll probably go around and look for more good tests next week.

 

[dgianstefani]

Z490 Ace is very nice, especially for the price. I have their x570 Ace and it's great.

 

[cucker tarlson]

aorus elite seems very good for the price

 

[fevgatos]

Z490 Ace is very nice, especially for the price. I have their x570 Ace and it's great.

I have the z490 ace

 

[cucker tarlson]

Z490 Ace is very nice, especially for the price. I have their x570 Ace and it's great.

for the price ?
it costs a big premium over unify and it's the same thing with leds.can't run igpu either,neither for display output nor any quicksync accelerated workloads.

it's an exceptional board for oc,but just get unify and a kf sku.

 

[P4-630]

24 Intel Z490 moederborden review: van koorts tot kookpunt

In deze review vergelijken we 24 Intel Z490-moederborden. We stellen ze op de proef met een Core i9 10900K, de meest luxe 10de generatie Core-processor...

nl.hardware.info

 

[cucker tarlson]

aorus elite ac seems the best price/perf to me.
just beware it can overvolt the cpu on auto.

 

[P4-630]

24 Intel Z490 moederborden review: van koorts tot kookpunt

In deze review vergelijken we 24 Intel Z490-moederborden. We stellen ze op de proef met een Core i9 10900K, de meest luxe 10de generatie Core-processor...

nl.hardware.info

 

[RandallFlagg]

Asus Prime Z490M Plus is technically 4+4 teamed, other Asus designs follow this pattern until you get to the really pricey ones .

This means you have one PWM that powers up two MOSFETS at the same time in a single phase, allowing double the power in the phase. This requires a more complex PWM that is designed to control two MOSFETS. So this would have 4x PWMs, 8 MOSFETS, and 8 chokes.

Doubling is when you have one PWM going through a doubler which alternates firing one MOSFET, then a 2nd MOSFET for 2 phases. The PWM doesn't know this is happening as it's designed to fire one MOSFET. This decreases the number of PWM modules (4 PWMs for 8 phases) and allows using cheaper/simpler PWMs, but adds a doubler in the line, also makes the PWM that is designed to drive one phase work twice as hard as it has to fire twice per cycle. A doubled 8-phase would have 4 PWMs, 4 doublers, 8 MOSFETS, 8 Chokes.

Standard phase is one PWM firing a MOSFET and then a choke.

Asus teamed design looks superior to doubling to me as far as power delivery, because at any given time they have 2 mosfets online (double the power). In theory this could cause heat issues with the MOSFETS, but in testing it hasn't. Techspot stated that it should be able to run a 10600K OC to 5Ghz in the mid 60C peak range:

Top 5 Intel Z490 Motherboards

The latest generation of Intel Core CPUs have arrived accompanied by the new Z490 platform. Incredibly, there are over 50 Intel Z490 motherboards on the market, with...

www.techspot.com

"The vcore portion of the VRM packs eight 50A power stages, configured as a teamed 4-phase. We grabbed this board and after some quick tests, the results are quite impressive. It runs around 4C hotter than the Prime Z490-P and that means with a Core i5-10600K overclocked to 5 GHz with 1.35v, you’re looking at a peak operating temperature of just 66 degrees with a reasonably well ventilated case in a 21C climate. "

 

[Caring1]

"The vcore portion of the VRM packs eight 50A power stages, configured as a teamed 4-phase. We grabbed this board and after some quick tests, the results are quite impressive. It runs around 4C hotter than the Prime Z490-P and that means with a Core i5-10600K overclocked to 5 GHz with 1.35v, you’re looking at a peak operating temperature of just 66 degrees with a reasonably well ventilated case in a 21C climate. "

21C is Winter temps here, so teamed 4 phase is useless here, especially with 50A power stages.
I would have to run airconditioning all year round to keep the system cool.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

The PWM doesn't know this is happening as it's designed to fire one MOSFET.

Depends on the controller and other components used in the VRM... Most modern (think last decade) controllers were designed with potential doubling schemes in mind.
There are many different ways you can trade operating parameters in the VRM, to tune the performance characteristics... You can change inductances, capacitance, operating frequency, power plane characteristics, and tons more... Doubling or teaming phases is only a very small aspect of overall design.

at any given time they have 2 mosfets online (double the power).

The mosfets are switched at hundreds of kHz, the average current load is the only thing that matters temperature wise, any momentary state the VRM is in is basically irrelevant.

The main thermal problem that can arise with teamed phases is that one mosfet/powerstage has different thermal characteristics than the next (either due to production factors, or other things to do with the board and/or thermal solution) and the components that are teamed together heat up at different rates. While with certain dual drivers and doublers you can current balance between the different parts within a teamed phase, you can not do this with simple teaming. However if you have a well designed cooling solution and/or are not operating near the limits of the components of the VRM this is basically never going to be an issue.

 

[RandallFlagg]

21C is Winter temps here, so teamed 4 phase is useless here, especially with 50A power stages.
I would have to run airconditioning all year round to keep the system cool.

That doesn't make any sense. More phases actually generate more heat overall, all else being equal (quality of components is critical, probably the biggest factor even over the design chosen). More phases will generate less heat per phase (individual components can be smaller and run cooler), but the overall VRM is still supplying the same power and with more phases there are switching losses which means power waste.

The mosfets are switched at hundreds of kHz, the average current load is the only thing that matters temperature wise, any momentary state the VRM is in is basically irrelevant.

That's nonsensical. One of the main reasons for using multiple stages in the first place is to spread the heat load out. Another reason is size of components, and a last reason is transient response time. The fact is a MOSFET that is in a true 8 phase VRM spends 7/8ths of its time powering nothing. It doesn't really matter that it did nothing 260,000 intervals and did something 40,000 intervals in that second. When it's doing nothing, it's not creating heat.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

More phases actually generate more heat overall

The efficiency is not constant. As you pass over the peak efficiency of per phase current the conduction losses begin to dominate over the switching losses and in most cases the lower phase count systems will end up being less efficient at the 200-300A range because the individual mosfet current goes past 15-20A (depends on the specific phase count obviously.

The point about the momentary states is that it is irrelevant whether you switch 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 or (1+2)-(3+4)-(5+6)-(7+8) because the mean current per component remains the same.

Also when the PWM signal is "off" the phase is still conducting, it is just conducting from the ground plane as the inductor is "pulling" current with the energy stored in its magnetic field. In the "on" signal state the 12v is being "pushed" through the inductor which increases the energy stored in its magnetic field. The former has the low side or sync mosfet conducting, and the latter has the high side or control mosfet conducting. In any buck converter the duty cycle of each of the mosfets depends on the change in voltage you are trying to achieve across the converter, for 12v to 1.2v, you operate at 1/10 duty cycle on the high side, and 9/10 on the low side, for 12v to 6v it would be 50/50. Because of this, components designed for computer VRMs where the output voltage is several times lower than the input voltage the low side mosfet is optimised towards conduction performance while the high side is optimised towards switching performance because it spends a lot less time conducting.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

Asus Prime Z490M Plus is technically 4+4 teamed, other Asus designs follow this pattern until you get to the really pricey ones .

This means you have one PWM that powers up two MOSFETS at the same time in a single phase, allowing double the power in the phase. This requires a more complex PWM that is designed to control two MOSFETS. So this would have 4x PWMs, 8 MOSFETS, and 8 chokes.

Doubling is when you have one PWM going through a doubler which alternates firing one MOSFET, then a 2nd MOSFET for 2 phases. The PWM doesn't know this is happening as it's designed to fire one MOSFET. This decreases the number of PWM modules (4 PWMs for 8 phases) and allows using cheaper/simpler PWMs, but adds a doubler in the line, also makes the PWM that is designed to drive one phase work twice as hard as it has to fire twice per cycle. A doubled 8-phase would have 4 PWMs, 4 doublers, 8 MOSFETS, 8 Chokes.

Standard phase is one PWM firing a MOSFET and then a choke.

Asus teamed design looks superior to doubling to me as far as power delivery, because at any given time they have 2 mosfets online (double the power). In theory this could cause heat issues with the MOSFETS, but in testing it hasn't. Techspot stated that it should be able to run a 10600K OC to 5Ghz in the mid 60C peak range:

Top 5 Intel Z490 Motherboards

The latest generation of Intel Core CPUs have arrived accompanied by the new Z490 platform. Incredibly, there are over 50 Intel Z490 motherboards on the market, with...

www.techspot.com

"The vcore portion of the VRM packs eight 50A power stages, configured as a teamed 4-phase. We grabbed this board and after some quick tests, the results are quite impressive. It runs around 4C hotter than the Prime Z490-P and that means with a Core i5-10600K overclocked to 5 GHz with 1.35v, you’re looking at a peak operating temperature of just 66 degrees with a reasonably well ventilated case in a 21C climate. "

My board got picked as the best m-ATX board in that article, woop! That being said, I think ASUS got their pricing mixed up or something, because my board costed $240, yet the SMALLER Strix ITX board costs $300 and doesn't seem to offer quite as much as my board

 

[tabascosauz]

My board got picked as the best m-ATX board in that article, woop! That being said, I think ASUS got their pricing mixed up or something, because my board costed $240, yet the SMALLER Strix ITX board costs $300 and doesn't seem to offer quite as much as my board

I mean, BZ has a soft spot for the Z490-G and it's for sure the most well-rounded mATX board, but with 50A SiC63x Vishays it's nowhere near the ITX boards in component price and segment. Ever since X570 became a thing, these vendors have been trying (for better or worse) to make their ITX boards fight their flagship ATX boards for some reason. So 60A/70A/90A SPSes galore, and even with those top parts there's only so much surface area you can put on those tiny ITX heatsinks and the VRM density is insane. And Asus is hiding a VRM fan under there too; it might be overkill if there are TDA21472s or ISL99390s under those heatsinks, but given what the 10900K can be pushed to draw, they're probably right to err on the safe side.

It just honestly sucks that up until now the expensive Gene was probably the only respectable mATX board on any mainstream platform, and even the Gene went AWOL for two generations. I'm guessing that if Asus wants it to make a return, it'll be at the end of LGA1200 and without a Strix SKU like the G to steal its thunder. Or it's just not coming back at all.

Sometimes I wonder if mATX is so well and truly dead as they say that it's entirely financially unfeasible to make a decent upper mid range board with a POST code without going into Gene-land and it's la-la-land features like DIMM.2.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Going from asus formula returned then to apex z490 sure don't need a vrm water block and i just saved 100.us and got dual bios too plus a lot more perks

 

[EarthDog]

these vendors have been trying (for better or worse) to make their ITX boards fight their flagship ATX boards for some reason.

Because people want to be able to, and expect to, run every chip in the stable no matter what shortcomings are inherent on these tiny boards. Since power use is going up and the way these chips use 'tdp' they have to be beefy to support it.

Hi,
Going from asus formula returned then to apex z490 sure don't need a vrm water block and i just saved 100.us and got dual bios too plus a lot more perks

Hello!

Need.. of course not. Bling and better temps, yes.

 

[ppn]

is there any evaluation of the cost per phase.

how much did asrock save by soldering 88% efficient Mosfets instead of the 94% efficient Intersil and Infineon S+ rating.

This is preposterous, Z490 should all be S+ power delivery and memory overclock top to bottom. And let other factors decide. like layout and colors.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

is there any evaluation of the cost per phase.

This is a good idea however it's hard to really get an accurate number on the component costs as they tend to fluctuate with time. Additionally, western suppliers generally deviate (to varying amounts) from prices large companies like the mobo guys are able to get on bulk orders, the costs associated with the different distribution methods are different and hard to quantify. The other components in the VRM also make it a balancing game as you will need different amounts of capacitance and different inductors depending on how you set up the VRM, again costs and tradeoffs which are hard to quantify as an outside observer.

Also you have to remember that the different components have different efficiencies depending on the current load. The 88% figure is at 30A per phase (for the 10 phase VRM), which is significantly above the peak efficiency of any of these components. While for a 16 phase with 99390s, 300A is just under 20A per powerstage which is pretty close to where the peak efficiency of those parts lies (according to buildzoids numbers it's around 17-19A for the 99390s). On the 3rd sheet I have some of the components compared and you can see the peak efficiency differs by only around 2-3%...

You can see that the 8phase 99390 setup of the ITX unify performs much below the 16phase ones in the ATX boards, since the lower phase count shifts you away from the peak efficiency. And knocking off 2 powerstages of the SiCs on the low end Asus boards also cuts your 300A efficiency from 88% to only 85% since the current per powerstage has gone from 30 to 37.5A...

 

[RandallFlagg]

My board got picked as the best m-ATX board in that article, woop! That being said, I think ASUS got their pricing mixed up or something, because my board costed $240, yet the SMALLER Strix ITX board costs $300 and doesn't seem to offer quite as much as my board

I'm really liking my Asus board. It's much cheaper than yours (Prime 490M) but it's running solid with a 10400 with BCLK 1.25 and has my DDR4-3200 running at 3280. Had the RAM at 3366 before increasing the BCLCK and it was solid. All that on stock Intel cooling, and I get the #8 highest PCMark10 score for a 10400, on a $150 motherboard. I don't even really consider this to be much tweaking as I haven't messed with voltages and such, this is mostly just an automatic setting. A really solid board so far.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

running solid with a 10400 with BCLK 1.25

How much BCLK? The locked CPUs shouldn't take anything over around 103...

 

[RandallFlagg]

How much BCLK? The locked CPUs shouldn't take anything over around 103...

Sorry, 1.025 or 2.5% boost. Doing that and lowering DDR4 speed about 80Mhz actually gave me another 130 points on PCMark 10. Pretty sure if I OC my GPU and claw back 150Mhz or so on my RAM I can break into the top 2 or 3 for a 10400.

 

[leank1]

Hi guys!

Im sorry but this question must be offtopic, hope u can help me!

Which one of this boards will you choose to pair with 10700k:

Aorus Elite AC
Aorus Pro AX
Asus Z490-E (worried about cpu cooler and ram clearance)




Im not an extreme overclocker, just a little bit.


Thanks in advance!