More Power phases = Better CPU OC?

[netok33]

How true is it?
Any evidence supporting this?
I did a bit research and was surprised to find that people just claim this without any evidence.
If you can find any evidence, please enlighten me.

 

[Isokolon]

this is a good article about mainboards in general
click here

 

[leo2kp]

More phases should mean cleaner power to the CPU, which can allow a higher overclock where otherwise it would be unstable due to fluctuations in power delivery.

 

[netok33]

this is a good article about mainboards in general
click here

I read that before.
It vaguely answer:
More power phases -> "Cleaner" power
It does not answer at all:
How much "Cleaner"? How does it affect OC? By how much?

 

[netok33]

More phases should mean cleaner power to the CPU, which can allow a higher overclock where otherwise it would be unstable due to fluctuations in power delivery.

How much "Cleaner"? How does it affect OC? By how much?
It all look vaguely good in theory, but no actual proof.
Just like I can claim CPU with more cores perform better in gaming, when in actuality sometimes it is not.

 

[netok33]

I am new to this forum, but how come someone choose the best solution on my behalf?

 

[netok33]

I think I might add this so fellow members can expect the kind of answer I am looking for.
This is the best info I have on this topic, but still far from answering the question.
http://forums.evga.com/FindPost/2393511

 

[netok33]

Solution is unticked now thanks to USAFRet.

 

[leo2kp]

There are a lot of variables involved with performance and overclocking. "Clean" simply means that voltage variations and "ripple" are reduced with the more phases you have which means the CPU has a more consistent stream of power. Overclocking can push internal components to the limit, so any variation in voltage could cause one component to fail and give you an unstable overclock. "Cleaning" the power reduces the changes of that happening. Some motherboard manufacturers use different voltage management hardware which can be better or worse than another vendor, so a 10-phase VRM from vendor "A" might perform better than a 12-phase VRM from vendor "B", so that's why a good hardware review will tell you what brand and quality is being used.

 

[leo2kp]

this is a good article about mainboards in general
click here

I read that before.
It vaguely answer:
More power phases -> "Cleaner" power
It does not answer at all:
How much "Cleaner"? How does it affect OC? By how much?

More phases should mean cleaner power to the CPU, which can allow a higher overclock where otherwise it would be unstable due to fluctuations in power delivery.

How much "Cleaner"? How does it affect OC? By how much?
It all look vaguely good in theory, but no actual proof.
Just like I can claim CPU with more cores perform better in gaming, when in actuality sometimes it is not.

More CPU cores doesn't mean better gaming. Multi-threading support and core clock speed are also important. For example, WoW and ESO are both CPU-dependent and rely on a single CPU core to do the heavy lifting and the rest are generally idle. So if you play WoW, you want a processor that has good single-core efficiency and a high clock speed. For some DX12 games, more cores may help because DX12 is better at spreading the work. Some DX12 games scale up to 6 or 8 cores before hitting a performance wall. To put it in to perspective, a Gen 6 4.5GHz Core i5 may be slower than a 4GHz 6-core in a DX12 game, but the i5 will beat the i7 in WoW because of single-core performance. I hope that makes some sense.

 

[netok33]

There are a lot of variables involved with performance and overclocking. "Clean" simply means that voltage variations and "ripple" are reduced with the more phases you have which means the CPU has a more consistent stream of power. Overclocking can push internal components to the limit, so any variation in voltage could cause one component to fail and give you an unstable overclock. "Cleaning" the power reduces the changes of that happening. Some motherboard manufacturers use different voltage management hardware which can be better or worse than another vendor, so a 10-phase VRM from vendor "A" might perform better than a 12-phase VRM from vendor "B", so that's why a good hardware review will tell you what brand and quality is being used.

this is a good article about mainboards in general
click here

I read that before.
It vaguely answer:
More power phases -> "Cleaner" power
It does not answer at all:
How much "Cleaner"? How does it affect OC? By how much?

More phases should mean cleaner power to the CPU, which can allow a higher overclock where otherwise it would be unstable due to fluctuations in power delivery.

How much "Cleaner"? How does it affect OC? By how much?
It all look vaguely good in theory, but no actual proof.
Just like I can claim CPU with more cores perform better in gaming, when in actuality sometimes it is not.

More CPU cores doesn't mean better gaming. Multi-threading support and core clock speed are also important. For example, WoW and ESO are both CPU-dependent and rely on a single CPU core to do the heavy lifting and the rest are generally idle. So if you play WoW, you want a processor that has good single-core efficiency and a high clock speed. For some DX12 games, more cores may help because DX12 is better at spreading the work. Some DX12 games scale up to 6 or 8 cores before hitting a performance wall. To put it in to perspective, a Gen 6 4.5GHz Core i5 may be slower than a 4GHz 6-core in a DX12 game, but the i5 will beat the i7 in WoW because of single-core performance. I hope that makes some sense.

Yes, if you read my reply again, you will know I bring up CPU because it is an analogy to the subject, ie. claiming "More Power phases = Better CPU OC" is somewhat like claiming "More CPU cores = Better gaming experience". So your reply is just proving my point.

Because of factors like "Multi-threading support", "DX12", we can see the benefit of the multiple cores in CPU in theory, and it is proved by benchmarks.
What about power phases? As shown from the post I linked in my previous reply, the voltage ripple is only 0.1%. How much do we benefit from minimizing this, if at all?
There are good hardware review that will tell you what brand and quality is being used, but they do not tell you any difference they make.

 

[Isokolon]

more power phases mean more capacitors which also translates to less stress on individual components and a higher threshold of power the board can handle

that's the reason why you can't get an Electric cooker if your power grid only got two phases because there's too much power for the grid to handle otherwise

more power phases usually mean the mainboard can deliver more power to the CPU and can sustain the additional power delivery longer and better since each phase is less stressed
but of course more phases mean nothing when the capacitors used are low quality

 

[leo2kp]

There are a lot of variables involved with performance and overclocking. "Clean" simply means that voltage variations and "ripple" are reduced with the more phases you have which means the CPU has a more consistent stream of power. Overclocking can push internal components to the limit, so any variation in voltage could cause one component to fail and give you an unstable overclock. "Cleaning" the power reduces the changes of that happening. Some motherboard manufacturers use different voltage management hardware which can be better or worse than another vendor, so a 10-phase VRM from vendor "A" might perform better than a 12-phase VRM from vendor "B", so that's why a good hardware review will tell you what brand and quality is being used.

this is a good article about mainboards in general
click here

I read that before.
It vaguely answer:
More power phases -> "Cleaner" power
It does not answer at all:
How much "Cleaner"? How does it affect OC? By how much?

More phases should mean cleaner power to the CPU, which can allow a higher overclock where otherwise it would be unstable due to fluctuations in power delivery.

How much "Cleaner"? How does it affect OC? By how much?
It all look vaguely good in theory, but no actual proof.
Just like I can claim CPU with more cores perform better in gaming, when in actuality sometimes it is not.

More CPU cores doesn't mean better gaming. Multi-threading support and core clock speed are also important. For example, WoW and ESO are both CPU-dependent and rely on a single CPU core to do the heavy lifting and the rest are generally idle. So if you play WoW, you want a processor that has good single-core efficiency and a high clock speed. For some DX12 games, more cores may help because DX12 is better at spreading the work. Some DX12 games scale up to 6 or 8 cores before hitting a performance wall. To put it in to perspective, a Gen 6 4.5GHz Core i5 may be slower than a 4GHz 6-core in a DX12 game, but the i5 will beat the i7 in WoW because of single-core performance. I hope that makes some sense.

Yes, if you read my reply again, you will know I bring up CPU because it is an analogy to the subject, ie. claiming "More Power phases = Better CPU OC" is somewhat like claiming "More CPU cores = Better gaming experience". So your reply is just proving my point.

Because of factors like "Multi-threading support", "DX12", we can see the benefit of the multiple cores in CPU in theory, and it is proved by benchmarks.
What about power phases? As shown from the post I linked in my previous reply, the voltage ripple is only 0.1%. How much do we benefit from minimizing this, if at all?
There are good hardware review that will tell you what brand and quality is being used, but they do not tell you any difference they make.

The best answer you're going to get is a vague answer. Nobody can give you an exact answer. The reason is because of what I've already said - different manufacturers use different components, different pathways, different VRM, and one board may have better results than another regardless of how many phases, and it's the exact same reason why more cores does not mean more performance in all situations. Architectures, caches, core speed, whether or not the memory controller is on-die or not, all of that stuff plays a role in performance. Ultimately what you need to do is read reviews of the boards you're interested in to determine if the power delivery is where you need it to be, and not all reviews go that far in depth to actually test the VRM using an oscilloscope. But as a general rule of thumb, more phases typically means cleaner, more stable power to the CPU.