939 - Best VRM?

The Halk

The Halk

The Halk

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I'm getting a bit fed up with the voltage regulators on my AN8 Fatal1ty.

Putting 1.55 volts through a dual core Opteron had my CPU temps well within limits, but the VRM temps were over 75.

I've got waterblocks on the VRMs and they're still coming out with massive temps.

Anyone ran a lot of volts through a dual core on a 939 board and found they got low temps on the VRM and can suggest a board?

Specifically, how did the DFI boards do with high load on the mosfets?
 
No, it's sitting at 37 degrees now, with 1.45 volts through both cores. If I stick Orthos on, it'll go right up by 40 degrees.
 
To be honest you'll be lucky to find one of them left, but I recently managed to get a hold of a DFI LANParty CFX3200 DR and the VRM's have got big passive heat sinks on them which, as long as you've got decent air flow, keeps them cooler.

The DFI LANParty UT NF4 Ultra-D also has them, but I've read about problems with this board and it doesn't get that great a review from CustomPC either.
OcUK's DFi LANParty UT
Also, I know that the s939 DFI motherboard with SLi has them too, and I've heard better things about that motherboard then the UT NF4.

Hope this helps,

Banjo ;_;
 
Yeah. Won't be easy to get hold of one.

It is easier though to get an Infinity. Are these the same boards as the lanparty ones, without the bling? Or are there differences...
 
are you sure that you've got good contact/flow with your blocks?
80C with an overclocked x2 on an AN8 are typical of air-cooled temps not wc.
 
Running 1.5v through my E6600 on Infinity P965-S and Everest gave me a mobo temp of 66 under Orthos load. This is with no additional cooling (just got the CPU under water as my NB block won't fit on the board :/) and just the usual front and rear intake/exhaust fans.

I'll check on idle temps when I get home if you like.
 
Abit AX8 with dualcore 4800+ running 2920 mhz at 1.5V orthos load with no fans = 90c and shutdown for pwm. a rough guess based on the heating curve upto that gives about 105c sustained. with a low speed fan wafting over them its about 70c load.

pretty-much, unless its got digital PWM, a LOT of phases (6+), or an exceptional implementation (Iwill KK266+R anyone?!? - OVERVOLT under load by about .05 on average, fully happy voltmodded for >2.6V with thunderbird cores, nasty habit of melting +5V wires on ATX connector) - your going to have high PWM temps.

Sadly these components can not be 100% efficient, if they are a solid 80% efficient, and cpu wants 100W, they must get rid of 25W, and that normaly gets sunk into the mobo. - remember FET's have a thick plastic cap over the working silicon which is itself bonded to the metal back-plate that gets soldered to the mobo. you also have losses in the inductors and the caps, and in the traces taking power to the cpu.

if tis working - dont worry about it. these components alle xpect to get pretty hot.
 
It is an nForce 4 chipset. But that's not what's reaching the high temps. It's the VRM, the mosfets that supply and regulate the voltage to the CPU.

The contact with them is as good as it gets, the waterblocks have been sanded flat. and lapped to 10 micron, and I'm using MX-1 thermal compound.

This issue, the annoying LEDs, the age of the motherboard (it's been running for 2 years now) and it's poor performance at overclocking, and it's complete inability to follow the fan instructions I give it is making me think it's time to change the motherboard.

I know even a heavily clocked Opty 185 will not compete with a Quadcore. But Quadcores aren't necessary. I have an 8800 GTX, 2GB of Mushkin Redline, a Raptor drive... the whole PC is fast, and I've every reason to believe I'll be using this setup for at least a year, possibly 2 years before it's upgrade time.

So I'm thinking it might be worth it to get hold of a new motherboard.

So... anybody know how the DFi lanparty boards do with VRMs, or if the Asus is better (the only 939 board that's realistically available), and if the Lanparty boards are actually different to the Infinity boards, or if they're just lacking the bling.
 
Something like a DFI LanParty nF4 Ultra-D would be a safe bet :)

I typically use smaller midtower cases which inevitably have little airflow. However my old Ultra-D's PWM temps hardly pushed over 50 with an overclocked single core and very rarely pushed over 60 with my old Opteron 165 @ 2.8GHz. Again, this was with very little airflow in the case. Just a low speed 120mm fan at the front and a low speed 120mm fan at the rear.

If you do a good search, you might just find one used for around £40. :)

Mul
 
I've just read a review of the Asus A8N32 SLi, and I'm pretty much sold on it. I like the 8 stage VRM, it produces less heat, and even the CPU produces less heat.

And the huge bonus is I can buy a board new from OcUK.

Just need to look into cooling the mosfets on it, see if I can get waterblocks.
 
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