970M Pro3 VRM components

mATX board depth has always been an issue, seemingly/especially with Users in Europe that pay a much higher price for energy than we(I) do here in the US.

Yet I see the conundrum of the manufactures too. Hmmm, do we build a board that sips, or can we build a board that does double duty, sip, and be able to OC and guzzle.

Getting both onto an mATX board is not a sliding scale of profitability for any manufacturer.

For ASRock, IMHO, mATX falls falls somewhere between their full sized ATX offerings and that of their sipping board offerings found on asrockrack.com.

And never mind the HTPC market is dwindling, so there is even more stress in keeping the mATX board cost down, even if it does mean placing lower performance parts on to keep the price in check for mATX boards that surely has/had represented small production numbers and a narrow populace inclined to want them.

The "Pro" series of boards are all budget oriented while offering a few typically higher end features to make them more attractive. I guess you could call them ASRock's mainstream products, aimed at your average user. I suspect they chose not to reinvent the wheel with AM3+ boards so close to end of life for the socket. For the most part, if you look at sales figures, most new built AM3+ systems are built around cheaper FX CPUs like the FX 4k and 6k series. 

I guess MSI wants to hold on to its reputation of having weak VRMs. :D Not a good market strategy, if you ask me.

It should be noted that the Intel architecture is a bit different and comparing the VRMs between Intel and AMD is not straightforward. In the Skylake architecture the CPU TDP has been lowered at the expense of putting more stress on the VRM. For the OC enthusiasts this is apparently good news in the sense that cooling the CPU becomes easier, but then the VRM section naturally needs to be able to handle the extra load (http://www.overclock.net/t/1572028/z170-vrm-discussion-thread#post_24367959). Edit: I take it all back!

I wonder what the overheads are on those Intel boards. As is the case in many other products, the cheaper motherboards are likely the ones with the smallest profit margins and the pricier motherboards have more air in their price tags. So, a top-of-the-line motherboard will not cost more only because it's of higher quality, but also because it's "top-of-the-line". Another thing that can be expected to affect customer behaviour is the observed "norm" in pricing. Since Intel's CPUs are generally pricier than AMD's, an Intel customer can be expected to be prepared to pay some extra for the motherboard as well. It could be argued that while on AMD's side you pay for optimistic promises like "octa-core CPU" or "supports FX-9xxx CPUs", on Intel's side you pay extra for brand image. Neither really offers the optimal value for money.


Edited by PetrolHead - 24 Jan 2016 at 9:07am

Xaltar wrote: I skipped the entire FX line and went intel after my Phenom II x4 955 which is still going strong as a spare PC. I was never impressed with the performance of the FX line, it simply isn't worth the TDP overhead imo. I am really looking forward to Zen, AMD seldom make the same mistakes twice and I suspect Zen may just kick intel in the britches.

I share the sentiment that the FX CPUs do not really impress with their performance. This is why I'm going to wait for Zen before I upgrade my CPU. Of course it would be nice to see what an FX-6350 or an FX-8350 could do, but in practice they would offer no adavatage over my Phenom II X6 1090T in normal use and at the moment my GPU is the only thing holding my system back. If I had a better GPU, then some games could benefit from the newer CPUs, but not really enough to make the investment sensible.

That being said, I really like AMD's FX architecture and what (I think) they have tried to achieve. The same goes for the APUs. If I had unlimited funds, I'd get myself an A10-7870K (or the A10-7890K that's going to become available soon) just for the heck of it. Overclock it to bits, pair it with a discrete GPU and then find something that supports HSA... It would also be interesting to know how robust those 4+2 phase VRMs are, as they seem to be the best you can get with an FM2+ socket.

I am also looking forward to Zen and I'm really hoping it won't turn out to be a flop. What's more, I really hope that motherboard manufacturers would finally make some mATX motherboards that are as good as their ATX flagship boards.

But they were discussing the removal of FIVR and in turn adjustment from BIOS options. FIVR adjustments that most wound right up there as the cause for additional heat.

VRMs can't and don't directly contribute to a CPU running cool, or hot. CPU temp is directly relational to the voltage being applied to the CPU, and the physical CPUs ability or not to dissipate.

Fully Integrated Voltage Regulator(F.I.V.R.) removal by Intel from Skylake, as you're well aware the "Regulator' now not in the internals of Skylake, will lower TDP if only because of even more dissipation required to dissipate the heat of the F.I.V.R. .

No F.I.V.R. in Skylake = Lower TDP


Edited by wardog - 24 Jan 2016 at 8:57am