MB VRMs: do they matter more than features?

[hyperseven]

They do buy higher end parts when they're a few generations old as a cheap upgrade. Seems you're just salty about a man on the internet saying the thing you purchased is "bad".

Think humbug has a problem with people called Steve. He bangs on about Gamers Nexus and now picking on the unboxed chap

 

[humbug]

Think humbug has a problem with people called Steve. He bangs on about Gamers Nexus and now picking on the unboxed chap

 

[SonicSW20]

You can always go elsewhere for your reviews if you don't like the priorities Hardware Unboxed, Gamers Nexus etc have on their reviews. There are other reviewers who don't put so much weight on overclocking / "enthusiast" features. Simple enough.

 

[humbug]

You can always go elsewhere for your reviews if you don't like the priorities Hardware Unboxed, Gamers Nexus etc have on their reviews. There are other reviewers who don't put so much weight on overclocking / "enthusiast" features. Simple enough.

You're missing the point, deliberately i think.

 

[Gray2233]

"Features" tend to mean very little to me.

I'm very happy to buy a basic board with excellent VRM's at £90-120 or so, I'm not at all bothered about how many SATA ports or fan headers I have. I don't care about things such as 'quality' onboard audio, I run external products for that sort of thing.

If someone wants to buy a board with more 'features' instead of being focused on VRM's I don't see why there isn't room for both.

I do have a problem with bottom of the barrel motherboards claiming to support the likes of a 3950X however, and there's a few of them out there. Hell, there's a few that throttle with octa-cores when under load even at stock values.

 

[SonicSW20]

You're missing the point, deliberately i think.

Not at all, I'm struggling to understand why you seem to not get the concept of Hardware Unboxed, Gamers Nexus catering for their primary audience.

As said in my original comment in this thread, you've done the correct thing and taken onboard the information provided, decided that the sub par VRM's will not be an issue for you, and made your purchasing decision based on that.

 

[LePhuronn]

Not at all

Nope, I'd say for sure. The simple fact that you used "sub par VRMs" in your comment shows the point has totally passed you by.

 

[d_brennen]

Back in the day I killed a cheap AM3+ motherboard with a Phenom X6. It was on the compatibility list

 

[SonicSW20]

OP, which specific video are you referring to where Hardware Unboxed state that the ASRock AB350 Pro 4 is "junk, don't buy it"?

In this video (note the title) he rates it as the 2nd best ultra cheap B350M board, with the non Pro 4 being first by virtue of it being cheaper, but noting that if you're using a G series Ryzen then the Pro 4 is the one to get due to the additional outputs, or if you specifically need any of the additional IO.

 

[humbug]

Try and find a £70 to £90 B550 Board, even the B350 and B450 Tomahawk boards everyone thought were good all round board were sub £100, they had 4 phase VRMs. For under £100 of course they did.

Try and find that now with B550... but they all have better VRMs.

The original X570 Tomahawk was £180, i think it soon came down to £160, the cheapest X570 you could get, or one of... it didn't pass the Steve test, MSI withdrew it and promised to fix it, which they did, they added a much beefier VRM, and £60 to the price, Steve was pretty pleased with himself.

 

[Pulseammo]

I think the issue with the B550 and X570 boards was that they basically created a new product tier in the same way as Intel were doing and nVidia were doing. If you still want the old feature set and old VRMs B450 boards are still available. B550 didn't obselete B450 like it should have, they just put it in a tier above B450 and offered both. Same with what should be mid range GPUs now priced like they are the high end of old. Happens with everything, they don't shuffle the lineup down anymore, they just create more and more tiers on the top.

Isn't the problem actually just heatsinking anyway? I'd rather a board manufacturer spent money on a heatsink than on some neon light show, or oversized io shield cover etc.

 

[kitfit1]

Not overclocked.

With Zen, it depends what you actually men by "overclocked". Enabling PBO for instance, is an overclock (the wording in the bios tells you that). Setting a multi above stock is an overclock.
There is only one thing that isn't an overclock and that is leaving the bios at stock. It could be argued that setting the bios to motherboard limits is also an overclock, i don't see that argument that way at all. Setting motherboard limits then come down to what the mobo vendor thinks the limits of said mobo are to get the best out of a cpu.
I don't know of course if all mobo vendors have this option in a bios, i do know that Asus have it in the CH8. If all mobo vendors had the same option, then that would sort out good or bad VRM's very easily.

 

[pc-guy]

I like Hardware Unboxed but i think Steve's obsession with VRMs even on mid and lower end Motherboards is becoming a problem.

Essentially what he does is take a £120 motherboard and stress test a 3950X in it, if the VRMs biol the motherboard's no good...

On a high-end board yes sure... but on a budget board? Ridiculous...

Here's the thing, if reviewers start making it all about how well VRMs handle high-end CPU's then those vendors will improve those VRMs, high quality VRMs are expensive, vendors are not going to absorb that cost, they will pass it on to you or you will get fewer features, or a combination of both.

If i'm looking for a £120 Motherboard its not for a 3950X, as long as the VRMs can run a 3700X its fine.

Way back when Steve reviewed the Motherboard that i now own, he dropped an 1800X in it, overclocked the proverbials off it and concluded "its crap, don't buy it the VRMs are junk" i'm paraphrasing...

I ignored him and bought it, it was £90. It has:

2X USB2
4X USB3
2X USB3.1
1X USB Type C
PS2
2X M.2
X4 RAM Dimms
8X Sata
4X PWM Headers

And the usual
DVI
D-Sub
HDMI
RJ-45
Line In
Audio Out

Lots and lots of connectivity, including all 3 Video out types, 2X M.2 of which both are in use.

I have had it for 3 and a half years, i have the RAM tuned to within an inch of its life and it has never put a foot wrong, i haven't been in the BIOS since in installed the 3600 more than a year ago, i do a lot of high stress work with it and the VRMs never go much over 70c while rated at 125c.

It is the most solid and stable board i have ever owned.

Steve said its junk, don't buy it... all because it couldn't handle the VRMs being abused.

With sub $150 boards you're going to get the features you need or overkill VRMs, not both, those are high end boards, and if reviewers place too much emphasis on VRMs you're going to get good VRMs but no features.

Tbh, you got some points but his video on this matter has improved as he used to just test the boards with 3950x stock and overclocked. Now he has 3700x, 3900x and 3950x covering quite a few use scenarios. He also summarise them and caveat it.

really it is readers beware sort of situation.

I think it’s a fair game tbh. Ppl buying cheapy B550 boards probably won’t be thinking about coupling it with 3950x now but it could be a factor down the line. And if the price differential is £30 between something that can handle a 3950x overclocked and one that can’t then that’s a fairly valid point to make.

although rubbishing cheapy board outright is probably a bit extreme. Saying that some of the MSI x570 boards are truly terrible. Not entirely sure what they were meant for as it can barely handle any thing above 3700x.

 

[clv101]

I'm very happy to buy a basic board with excellent VRM's at £90-120 or so,

Which are the best *basic* B550/x570 boards today, with excellent VRMs?

 

[LeMson]

I like Hardware Unboxed but i think Steve's obsession with VRMs even on mid and lower end Motherboards is becoming a problem.

Essentially what he does is take a £120 motherboard and stress test a 3950X in it, if the VRMs biol the motherboard's no good...

On a high-end board yes sure... but on a budget board? Ridiculous...

Here's the thing, if reviewers start making it all about how well VRMs handle high-end CPU's then those vendors will improve those VRMs, high quality VRMs are expensive, vendors are not going to absorb that cost, they will pass it on to you or you will get fewer features, or a combination of both.

If i'm looking for a £120 Motherboard its not for a 3950X, as long as the VRMs can run a 3700X its fine.

Way back when Steve reviewed the Motherboard that i now own, he dropped an 1800X in it, overclocked the proverbials off it and concluded "its crap, don't buy it the VRMs are junk" i'm paraphrasing...

I ignored him and bought it, it was £90. It has:

2X USB2
4X USB3
2X USB3.1
1X USB Type C
PS2
2X M.2
X4 RAM Dimms
8X Sata
4X PWM Headers

And the usual
DVI
D-Sub
HDMI
RJ-45
Line In
Audio Out

Lots and lots of connectivity, including all 3 Video out types, 2X M.2 of which both are in use.

I have had it for 3 and a half years, i have the RAM tuned to within an inch of its life and it has never put a foot wrong, i haven't been in the BIOS since in installed the 3600 more than a year ago, i do a lot of high stress work with it and the VRMs never go much over 70c while rated at 125c.

It is the most solid and stable board i have ever owned.

Steve said its junk, don't buy it... all because it couldn't handle the VRMs being abused.

With sub $150 boards you're going to get the features you need or overkill VRMs, not both, those are high end boards, and if reviewers place too much emphasis on VRMs you're going to get good VRMs but no features.

I expect to run a 3950x or 4950x on my £90 tomahawk max

 

[Twinz]

I was disappointed when I found out my X570 Carbon has some of the worst VRM cooling of all the X570 boards. However, it had no problems with my 3800X folding @ home. The VRM's stayed below 65 degrees. The board is also pretty good with overclocking RAM.

Had I intended to overclock the crap out of a 3950 in a case with poor airflow, I would be a lot more dissapointed. But it handles my 3800X easy.

Still sucks to spend money on something I thought would be overkill, only to find out it was merely "sufficient" for my useage.

 

[Robert896r1]

It’s absolutely a relevant data point. How YOU value that data point is up to you.

There’s been manufacturers repeatedly called out for poor vrm performance and in the very next generation what did they do? Massively beef up their vrm implementations. It’s a good thing we got guys like buildzoid doing pcb breakdowns and HUB focusing on vrm performance.

The difference between a good and bad vrm also means how much load voltage you need to stable. This is relevant also as boost is a factor of voltage, power and heat.

 

[0h_no_not_again]

I have had it for 3 and a half years, i have the RAM tuned to within an inch of its life and it has never put a foot wrong, i haven't been in the BIOS since in installed the 3600 more than a year ago, i do a lot of high stress work with it and the VRMs never go much over 70c while rated at 125c.

It is the most solid and stable board i have ever owned.

Steve said its junk, don't buy it... all because it couldn't handle the VRMs being abused.

I think what is annoying is the widespread belief that thermals prove a VRM is good or not, which is only partly correct.

VRMs cannot be tested purely by thermal "analysis". Realistically a hot VRM reduces the lifespan of the FETs and bulk caps, and will heat-soak the motherboard eventually, but otherwise means little in terms of performance.

Look at it this way, a great engineer will optimise the design perfectly for cost-benefit. This overly sensitive focus on VRM temperatures only serves to increase the cost of the motherboards, where FETs, inductors and low ESR bulk caps cost £££.

My opinion for 99% of users: Choose a mobo with the features you want. Check the board temps around VRMs stay below ~80C on your processor & workloads. Be happy.

EDIT: HWUB pretty much follows with the 80C @ processor & workload criteria, so I'm not knocking them, more the community focus on VRM thermals.

 

[queamin]

Not overclocked.

For me, it is the price of the B550 they are creeping up in price a lot so it does become a option to put in a 3950 as most are £150 to £200+ and they not low end motherboards because of price, so in my eyes they should be able to handle a 3950 even overclocked.

Added not the cheap B550 boards

 

[humbug]

For me, it is the price of the B550 they are creeping up in price a lot so it does become a option to put in a 3950 as most are £150 to £200+ and they not low end motherboards because of price, so in my eyes they should be able to handle a 3950 even overclocked.

Added not the cheap B550 boards

The problem is they are removing the more budget end, its all well and good to say "oh but it can run a 3950X overclocked" so i ask can i have a B550 board that doesn't overclock a 3950X for <£100? No sorry, but you can have this one for £150, it has great VRMs....

I'm sick to death of this community being so easily duped by useless shiny stuff cheering on prices getting ramped up, this is how we ended up with £700 mid range graphics cards, the new minimum price for unlocked motherboards is £120, up from £70, hurray.... they have nice VRMs for 3950X overclocking.

I give up... i'll get a console at this rate.