What does VRM (Phases) affect and how many phases do we need?

[vkadurin]

Hi guys! First time posting here. Greetings from Bulgaria. So here is my quetion:

What does VRM (Phases) affect and how many phases do we need?

Can someone tell me what Voltage Regulator Module function is and what role the phases (for example 10 phase) have? Thanks in advance.

[Morfy]

It is the power delivery system for the cpu... I think

[mvitkun]

with phases there are two things that matter

-quality

-quantity

 

you could have 100 phase power delivery,but if they are shotty (insert other vowel if you need to) you might not be able to overclock very well anyway.

 

but if you have a quality single phase power deilvery you may still be unable to achieve good overclocks anyway due to limited power delivery.

 

8 phase and above is good for overclocking,provided that it's good quality vrms and that they have decent cooling on the motherboard.

 

when you get past say 16 phase I'd begin to question if the VRM's are actually good quality or if they are slapping as many as they can onto the motherboard (yes there are ones that have a large quantity and great quality)

 

Voltage Regulator Modules transfer the power while also converting the 12V (or whatever) to what the cpu/gpu needs (around 1v).

the more high quality phases you have the more you can raise the voltage without needing to worry about instability on the motherboards side.

 

so if you want 4.8ghz+ (3770K) or 5ghz+ (8350) it will help immensely to have a good amount of quality VRM's.

[christoi]

There's really no set amount so to speak, because of various factors:

 

First off, quality as said is also extremely important. There is a huge difference between the quality of mosfets for example, some unit are capable of handling 60A at 10w dissapation, while others can only supply a mere 10A.This also applies to the inductors and capacitors used, which can vary significantly.

 

As for what you need, it depends a lot on the platform and your usage senario. The cooling setup is especially important as the amount of power supplied to the CPU is roughly the same as the amount of power that has to be dissapated by the cooler. As a result, higher-end setups involving watercooling would be better with a high-quality VRM, so you can push the voltage without being limited in that respect.That isn't everything though, you also have to keep longevity in mind. A motherboard vrm is similar to a power supply, so running it at high load levels can decrease the longevity of the unit over time. If you are running a watercooled and heavily overclocked setup that's folding 24/7 for example, I would recommend going for a higher-end board.

 

Generally speaking, for an average use with an air cooler (or a low-end AIO watercooler) I'd recommend a board like the Z77X-UD3H which has 6 mid/high-quality phases going to the CPU, which would easily suffice and last quite a bit.

[mgsstar]

Having more phases on the motherboard means that you will reduce ripples in the current and thus making your overclocks more stable. This will be very useful if you plan on going high overclocks and want it to be stable.