Whats the difference between 14+2 and 12+2 power stage

[TTurner]

I am looking a new motherboard from asus and it writes 14+2 power stage amd 12+2 power stage, can somebody explain 

 

[Arcanekitten]

Basically it says something about the VRM of a motherboard. Usually more = better for overclocking for stabilization.

 

Techquickie did a video on it and Gamersnexus has a great readup on it:

 

https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/1229-anatomy-of-a-motherboard-what-is-a-vrm-mosfet?showall=1

 

 

[Bombastinator]

-deleted- it was too dumb to be allowed to live.

 

Edited March 11, 2021 by Bombastinator

[-rascal-]

21 minutes ago, TTurner said:

I am looking a new motherboard from asus and it writes 14+2 power stage amd 12+2 power stage, can somebody explain 

 

 

Which two motherboards are you looking at specifically?

Sometimes the number of phases is marketing.

It may NOT be a *true* 14 + 2 phase VRM design (i.e. Use of Doublers).

 

X + Y, where:

X = Phases for the CPU

Y = Phases the SOC or Memory

[Mister Woof]

16 minutes ago, -rascal- said:

 

Which two motherboards are you looking at specifically?

Sometimes the number of phases is marketing.

It may NOT be a *true* 14 + 2 phase VRM design (i.e. Use of Doublers).

 

X + Y, where:

X = Phases for the CPU

Y = Phases the SOC or Memory

Off topic a bit, but what are your thoughts on DrMOS? Instead of individual driver + lo + hi, they are all one.

 

The TUF Z590-Plus I'm getting (and it would seem most ASUS Z590s) are all 12+2 or 14+2 DrMOS. It looks like most of the Z590 series are DrMOS.

 

This might be what the OP is looking at.

 

 

 

OP: Power stages provide power to the CPU. They are important for clean and consistent CPU power. It's important for all CPUs, but more important for power hungry CPUs and overclocking.

 

A lot of shenanigans have gone into power stages, but in the traditional sense, it's a driver, a low side mosfet, a high side mosfet, and a choke.

 

Normally the more of these the better, but because of heat sinks, it's hard to tell how they're actually implemented and set up. Some just use one driver and double up mosfets and chokes, which is really only one phase (not two like marketed) that shares some of the load but only one driver.

 

Others will use doublers which is better than just doubled components, but there aren't a lot of boards that have high number of actual drivers.

 

The DrMOS above appears to be a more condensed version of 1 driver/1 hi mosfet/1 low mosfet + 1 choke, so it seems you'd treat that as a full on power stage vs the other implementations.

 

Then there's the heat sinks - this is pretty important as it helps to dissipate the heat these components generate under load. Especially with a more powerful processor.

 

Usually what you're paying for in terms of power delivery, is the type and amount of voltage regulation, and their cooling solution.

 

Other components of motherboard cost are ports, slots, sound chip, etc.

[-iSynthesis]

8 minutes ago, Mister Woof said:

Off topic a bit, but what are your thoughts on DrMOS? Instead of individual driver + lo + hi, they are all one.

 

The TUF Z590-Plus I'm getting (and it would seem most ASUS Z590s) are all 12+2 or 14+2 DrMOS. It looks like most of the Z590 series are DrMOS.

 

This might be what the OP is looking at.

Combined High- and Lowside FETs are pretty much standard in every high-end board by now.

They often offer more monitoring features (temperature, current and voltage monitoring etc.).

A well designed separate FET design can be excellent (and in theory has larger surface area) but by now it's mostly used in cheaper boards as Power Stages tend to be more expensive.

 

To OPs question, it would be helpful to know which motherboard it is about. Generally, the first number is the number of Phases the CPU gets and the second number is for the memory.

Motherboard makers often bullshit about phase count. It's almost impossible to tell a good from a bad VRM simply by looking at the numbers in front.