VRM Overview

With our Ryzen 9 9950X in the socket and under full load for 30 minutes, the VRM temperatures levelled off at a rather toasty peak of 90°C and this wasn't an isolated spot, with the rest of the thermistor probes not far behind. Clearly, while high, this is a pass, even with this monster of a CPU, and with less demanding tasks things will be much cooler, as they will be in a well-ventilated case compared to our worst case scenario minimal airflow test here. If you plan extended periods under full load with 170 W CPUs with this motherboard then you'll need to take steps to keep the VRMs cool.


The heatsinks are in two pieces and of moderate size with plenty of deep fins to boost surface area. However, the volume of the heatsinks is lower than you'd typically see on boards at this price, which could be one reason things got toasty. Another is the MOSFET's themselves. The 12+2+1 power phase design for vCore, SOC and MISC respectively, comprises discrete P-PACK MOSFET packaging, rather than more efficient DrMOS or SPS. Here separate Sinopower 50 A SM4337 high-side- and SM4503 low-Side-MOSFETs are used.


We also have Richtek RT3672EE and RT3678BE PWM controllers.