970M Pro3 VRM components

Looks to me like LF Pak, NXP Semi, LowRDS

I'm glad people are paying attention to the components and number of phases used in the processor's VRM design in mother boards.

Then we have a typically critical analysis of some AMD boards like the one included above.

Reality Check: The board in question costs $65 at a well known E-tailer in the USA.

What can be expected from a board that is sold for $65?!

How can any board at this price be considered for over clocking? To compare it with boards that are at least three times its price for component and build quality does not make sense.

We don't get what we don't pay for, sorry to say.

By the way, I thought it might be a good thing to share some things about The Stilt. After all, if you haven't heard of him, why would you trust him over manufacturer's specifications? This is a very good question. Maybe you shouldn't. But consider these facts:

-The Stilt is a very experienced overclocker. For example, he has pushed an A10-6800K to 8.2 Ghz, an FX-8370 to 8.7 GHz and an FX-9370 to 8.5 GHz.  http://hwbot.org/user/the_stilt/#Hardware_Library

-The Stilt is the one that found and fixed a BIOS bug that was holding AMD CPUs back in SuperPi 32M.

Finnish overclocker, The Stilt, figured out how to considerably improve performance by going through the BIOS developers guides. The exact same guides available to the BIOS R&D teams of motherboard vendors, a surprising fact considering a single man managed to outdo an entire industry.

http://www.techpowerup.com/186056/amd-super-pi-history-to-be-rewritten-courtesy-the-stilt.html

As far as AMD hardware goes - possibly Intel as well - I think it's pretty safe to assume The Stilt is one of the most knowledgeable people you can run into on internet forums.

While contemplating where to take my OC next and what my VRM can or can't take, I've noticed that there's no mention of over current protection (OCP) regarding the 970M Pro3 anywhere. There's some sort of surge protection, which is meant to deal with power spikes from the PSU, but as far as I can tell, the VRM is not protected in any way. The BIOS does limit the maximum Vcore value to 1.55 V, which may protect the board from the user to some extent. However, as The Stilt pointed out, voltage is not the only variable that affects the durability of the VRM. The load current value of the CPU is another important part of the equation, and this value depends on the CPU. Sadly, it seems very hard to find out what this value is, so it's hard to say for which CPUs that 1.55 V could be considered acceptable, if any. At least there's good reason to believe that it's way too much for FX CPUs on this board...

In any case, back to the lack of OCP. What I'm wondering is will the lack of OCP mean that the VRM will not throttle no matter what and instead just go up in flames when it's had enough? For example, at the moment I'm knowingly taking a risk in light of wardog's advice in another thread, which means that I've crossed the 1.4 V border with the CPU and set it to 1.4375 V in an attempt to see if it's enough for 3.9 GHz on all six cores. HWmonitor does show Vcore values lower than the one that I've set, and most of the time the value is below 1.38 V, so maybe this is still "safe". Maybe not. The point is I've been running Prime95 now for about 45 minutes and there has been no throttling. The cores are under 100% load and the clock speed has been 3900 MHz with only the sort of ~30 MHz occasional fluctuation that is present even at stock speeds. Max temperatures have been 69 C socket and 49 C for the cores, so while the socket is at the limit of what is considered safe, neither value should be an issue. So, everything seems okay and Prime95 has reported no issues. But maybe this stability is just an illusion. Maybe the VRM is just waiting to pop. There's no temperature sensor on the VRM and there's no OCP, so there's no way of knowing how big a risk I'm taking and there is no safety net. At least that's what it seems like at the moment.

I think I'm going to buy a handheld infrared thermometer at some point to monitor the VRM temperatures. Then again, what would the VRM be rated for? 85 C, 105 C or something else?

parsec wrote: You are the one that posted Stilt's quote about over clocking with boards like this. Why wouldn't someone assume that is what you are referring to?

The quotes from The Stilt are not about overclocking with boards like this. He only mentions overclocking once as an example of how overly optimistic ASRock's promises are: If a board is supposed to be able to handle an FX-9xxx, it should be able to handle a slightly overclocked FX-8xxx without issues (even knowing that the FX-9xxx probably requires less voltage to achieve its rated speed than an FX-8xxx would). What The Stilt's post is about is this: The 970M Pro3 should be used with FX-8xxx processors, and isn't recommended for 32 nm processors with a TDP of over 95 W, which in practice means the FX-6350.

I only see one 140W TDP processor in the CPU support list, a Phenom II x4 processor. Should you use 140W FX-8000 series processors in this board? No, they are not in the support list.

I meant those to be two separate, unrelated questions. However, since it's stated in the specs as if there were no differences between similar TDP values of different CPUs, it would be easy to assume that even with FX-8xxx CPUs the user has ~15 W of headroom for overclocking. In any case it's now easy to be sceptical of that value, no matter what CPU it might refer to.

Btw, I'm a bit surprised to see that TDP value. I wonder why it's so high compared to other Deneb CPUs?

So no OC with this board? Fine, the only mention of over clocking in its description is the X-Boost feature, which is for unlocking cores.

The manual also dedicates several pages to overclocking, as the board comes with AXTU. Also the overclocking options in the BIOS are covered. While the board isn't advertised as a good board for overclocking, ASRock doesn't really advise against it either.

But again, the ability to OC wasn't really the point. The point is the CPU support list is optimistic when it shouldn't be. The ability to OC would follow from the CPU support list, however, assuming it could be trusted. For example: if the FX-8370 is supported (as it is), there should be some headroom to overclock an FX-6300. After all, even a stock FX-8370 can go well beyond 125 W TDP depending on load and CPU temperature.

But if the argument here is it does not support 140W FX-8000 when it claims to do so, the specs are vague enough and the CPU Support list detailed enough to show that argument does not apply.

The argument is that the board doesn't really support FX-8xxx CPUs, and that even an FX-6350 is a risk. And by "support" I mean that those CPUs could be run reliably at any load (at stock settings). Of course if the CPU never sees use that takes advantage of what it can offer, maybe one can get away with running one for a longer period of time.

Frankly, I understand your frustration, and I don't want you to have a board you don't like.

Even though it may seem that I complain a lot about this board, I actually like it at the moment. It has so far been able to handle what I've thrown at it, and frankly, there doesn't seem to be anything better on the market in the mATX size. What I am mostly frustrated about is ASRock and the promises they make that make it pretty much impossible for a consumer to make a reasonably informed decision on what to buy. If I had gone for an FX-6350, I would probably have an issue with the board as well, but I got lucky in the CPU department. The other thing I'm frustrated about is that ASRock apparently didn't think making this board any better was worth it, because I see that as a missed opportunity. They already had better VRM designs on other boards, the mATX size doesn't limit the VRM size and the price hike due to the components would not have made this board expensive, since it's so cheap to begin with. This board could have been... wait for it... legendary. ;)

IMO, the AMD FX-8000 and FX-9000 series processor and mother board compatibility situation is terrible. It bothers me more than you know or may believe. IMO, AMD shares a good part of the fault by releasing these processors without some control over how they are used. While Intel is hated for the amount of control they force upon mother board manufactures, only allowing processors to work or be over clocked on specific platforms, AMD could learn something from them in this case.

I believe you and I agree.


Edited by PetrolHead - 22 Jan 2016 at 8:34pm