Consumer vs. Server: AMD Dual-Epyc Motherboard VRM Analysis
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Date: 2020-05-06
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Comments and reviews: 10
Sam
While that delta fan is certainly impressive, there are many fans that are better. Firstly: don't let that 7A fool you: that's only for startup (and the start current is still only 5. 76A. Avg current is 4. 3A Still a lot, but still. Also, it gets 3. 665 m 3/min (130CFM) of airflow out of that speed, and because it's so fast, it's 77 dB. Comparing to Sanyo (san-ace) we have several SKUs that do more airflow at lower RPM, lower current and less noise. For example the 9GV series which has a 9GV0812P1G03 that gets 3. 9 m 3/min (138 CFM) and it operates at 10, 200 RPM, 3. 8A and only 65 dB. The -H03 version gets 3. 7 m 3/min (131 CFM) which is the same as delta, but it only needs 9700 RPM, 3A and 63 dB. Now you may say that the delta has more static pressure than either of these and you'd be right. 4. 97 inchH20, vs 1. 97 and 1. 77, but sanyo has a high static pressure variant 9HVA0812P1G001 with 3. 5A/16100RPM/3. 75 m 3/min (132CFM)/73 dB and it gets 5. 4 inches of pressure. So all the specs are at least as good as the delta and the pressure is much higher. So delta fans are characterized by being fast and loud and worse that the competition which are less power hungry and less loud for similar or better specs. Edit: at 26: 03 it's moved over there for cooling purposes. See how it's directly aligned with the RAM? You get good cooling there. Now, why they couldn't move that SAS connector a little to the left is beyond me, I would have to get a better look at the full system to guess there.
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While that delta fan is certainly impressive, there are many fans that are better. Firstly: don't let that 7A fool you: that's only for startup (and the start current is still only 5. 76A. Avg current is 4. 3A Still a lot, but still. Also, it gets 3. 665 m 3/min (130CFM) of airflow out of that speed, and because it's so fast, it's 77 dB. Comparing to Sanyo (san-ace) we have several SKUs that do more airflow at lower RPM, lower current and less noise. For example the 9GV series which has a 9GV0812P1G03 that gets 3. 9 m 3/min (138 CFM) and it operates at 10, 200 RPM, 3. 8A and only 65 dB. The -H03 version gets 3. 7 m 3/min (131 CFM) which is the same as delta, but it only needs 9700 RPM, 3A and 63 dB. Now you may say that the delta has more static pressure than either of these and you'd be right. 4. 97 inchH20, vs 1. 97 and 1. 77, but sanyo has a high static pressure variant 9HVA0812P1G001 with 3. 5A/16100RPM/3. 75 m 3/min (132CFM)/73 dB and it gets 5. 4 inches of pressure. So all the specs are at least as good as the delta and the pressure is much higher. So delta fans are characterized by being fast and loud and worse that the competition which are less power hungry and less loud for similar or better specs. Edit: at 26: 03 it's moved over there for cooling purposes. See how it's directly aligned with the RAM? You get good cooling there. Now, why they couldn't move that SAS connector a little to the left is beyond me, I would have to get a better look at the full system to guess there.
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movax20h
When designing a well engineered board, with just right components, sometimes some components are still overbuild. For example the VDDR power stages could have been 3555, not 3556, despite 3556 being fully adequate. Why? To reduce number of parts needed to stock or keep on order, or to have a thermal headroom. Few cents difference might not make any difference. If you look at prices of IR3555 and IR3556, at big quantities, like 3000+ pcs, you would think IR3555 (60A, would cost a bit more than IR3556 (50A. Right? No. In fact it is reverse. IR3555 is 1. 984 /pcs, and IR3556 is 2. 4576 /pcs. That is a pretty big difference, but these prices can change from month to month, and one part might have few weeks to be delivered, and another can be few months. Who knows. The takeaway is that the lower spec chips are not necessarily cheaper or better deal when designing a board. In fact IR3556 and IR3555 are coming from the same series and are basically drop in replaceable with each other, same design date, same warranties, same rest of the spec. So sometimes board vendors will probably change them depending on the week they are manufacturing and what do they have on hand available, because both will work just fine.
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When designing a well engineered board, with just right components, sometimes some components are still overbuild. For example the VDDR power stages could have been 3555, not 3556, despite 3556 being fully adequate. Why? To reduce number of parts needed to stock or keep on order, or to have a thermal headroom. Few cents difference might not make any difference. If you look at prices of IR3555 and IR3556, at big quantities, like 3000+ pcs, you would think IR3555 (60A, would cost a bit more than IR3556 (50A. Right? No. In fact it is reverse. IR3555 is 1. 984 /pcs, and IR3556 is 2. 4576 /pcs. That is a pretty big difference, but these prices can change from month to month, and one part might have few weeks to be delivered, and another can be few months. Who knows. The takeaway is that the lower spec chips are not necessarily cheaper or better deal when designing a board. In fact IR3556 and IR3555 are coming from the same series and are basically drop in replaceable with each other, same design date, same warranties, same rest of the spec. So sometimes board vendors will probably change them depending on the week they are manufacturing and what do they have on hand available, because both will work just fine.
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Mike
You have a new interest group that a completely unfamiliar with the changes that are going to need to make a MONO overclock their server CPU/RAM. This growth is incredibly interest in buyign zEN 2 Rome 2, an start doing thigs like probing that they find previously impractiable to overclovk mothorbosrds. except that we have these amaizing chip in our hot hands and we want to see what we could do on them safely. WHAT boards in the server space does the MOST OCB /. They want to show up Intel in many many spnosored benchmarks, and ongoing science that allows adding these overclocked units to turn in reliable results, unimpeachaeable results. If we help point out the best boards to OC server chips (EPYX) on them, just to get their name to the top of the charts that traditionally intel has PWNED for years. PLEASE submitt Suggestions! REMEMBER: Primary Motivastion is yo have one of their bioards hit #1, against a More powerful Intel. Nirvana for these folks.
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You have a new interest group that a completely unfamiliar with the changes that are going to need to make a MONO overclock their server CPU/RAM. This growth is incredibly interest in buyign zEN 2 Rome 2, an start doing thigs like probing that they find previously impractiable to overclovk mothorbosrds. except that we have these amaizing chip in our hot hands and we want to see what we could do on them safely. WHAT boards in the server space does the MOST OCB /. They want to show up Intel in many many spnosored benchmarks, and ongoing science that allows adding these overclocked units to turn in reliable results, unimpeachaeable results. If we help point out the best boards to OC server chips (EPYX) on them, just to get their name to the top of the charts that traditionally intel has PWNED for years. PLEASE submitt Suggestions! REMEMBER: Primary Motivastion is yo have one of their bioards hit #1, against a More powerful Intel. Nirvana for these folks.
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Mark
The total lack of understanding of how server fans are designed and cooling is handled is shocking. Never thought id say that on a GN Video mind. Server fan speeds of 12K+ have nothing to do with FLOW, and everything to do with negative and positive pressure. Negative pressure reduces the inlet temp, server inlets are routinely 4 to 6c colder than ambient, in addition, air behind the line is pressurised, and that pressure is routed thru various ducts to various components, which results in high-pressure flow, that diffuses as it passes thru things like heat syncs, this diffusion transfers airflow, from High-Speed High Pressure to Low-Speed Low Pressure, as a result, it quite literally vacumes the heat of heat syncs and other components. It really is all very clever shit when you actually look into why they are designed like they are, Density is nothing without adequate cooling. 30Kw per 40U in very high density's
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The total lack of understanding of how server fans are designed and cooling is handled is shocking. Never thought id say that on a GN Video mind. Server fan speeds of 12K+ have nothing to do with FLOW, and everything to do with negative and positive pressure. Negative pressure reduces the inlet temp, server inlets are routinely 4 to 6c colder than ambient, in addition, air behind the line is pressurised, and that pressure is routed thru various ducts to various components, which results in high-pressure flow, that diffuses as it passes thru things like heat syncs, this diffusion transfers airflow, from High-Speed High Pressure to Low-Speed Low Pressure, as a result, it quite literally vacumes the heat of heat syncs and other components. It really is all very clever shit when you actually look into why they are designed like they are, Density is nothing without adequate cooling. 30Kw per 40U in very high density's
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sadlerbw9
Ahh Delta fans. In my younger days I bought a couple 60mm deltas to upgrade an idiotic dual-socket system I had years ago in college. I didn't really know about Delta at the time, and I had roommates, so here is how it went: I installed the fans, turned the system on, and my roommates informed me that if I didn't turn it back off they were going to throw the PC out the window. So, I got to use my nice, new fans for about 60 seconds before I had to pull them and put the old fans back! I still have those fans sitting in a box somewhere. Anyway, that was the day that I learned Delta is the company that makes fans designed not to be in the same room with human ears!
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Ahh Delta fans. In my younger days I bought a couple 60mm deltas to upgrade an idiotic dual-socket system I had years ago in college. I didn't really know about Delta at the time, and I had roommates, so here is how it went: I installed the fans, turned the system on, and my roommates informed me that if I didn't turn it back off they were going to throw the PC out the window. So, I got to use my nice, new fans for about 60 seconds before I had to pull them and put the old fans back! I still have those fans sitting in a box somewhere. Anyway, that was the day that I learned Delta is the company that makes fans designed not to be in the same room with human ears!
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Jimmy
Very interesting video, thanks! I wonder, for 'normal' consumer motherboards, just how much extra are we paying for additional headroom (over engineered) and component selections(cheaper components will function exactly the same) that will simply never ever be required? I guess for some answers we just need to look at the advertising - there seems to be a 'numbers war' - mine goes higher than yours. While your primary interest is in overclocking, with power delivery the main topic in this video, it would be interesting for the viewers to see some more this board - you've left a lot out.
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Very interesting video, thanks! I wonder, for 'normal' consumer motherboards, just how much extra are we paying for additional headroom (over engineered) and component selections(cheaper components will function exactly the same) that will simply never ever be required? I guess for some answers we just need to look at the advertising - there seems to be a 'numbers war' - mine goes higher than yours. While your primary interest is in overclocking, with power delivery the main topic in this video, it would be interesting for the viewers to see some more this board - you've left a lot out.
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MichTheMich
It's not a BMC, it's onboard graphics. I explicitly remember the Aspeed name cause i ran into driver issues with it on ubuntu server 18. 04 LTS at one point. Not a fun time. And on that particular dual cpu workstation i need graphics output badly, cause it's not running headless. Handy old radeon gpus for little to the rescue. The actual BMCs are expansion boards, plugged into the empty slots marked OCP2 [smaller one, no chage] or OCP3 [the big black cage on the bottom right corner] on the rear backplane, Wendel actually mentionned that in the server overview vid.
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It's not a BMC, it's onboard graphics. I explicitly remember the Aspeed name cause i ran into driver issues with it on ubuntu server 18. 04 LTS at one point. Not a fun time. And on that particular dual cpu workstation i need graphics output badly, cause it's not running headless. Handy old radeon gpus for little to the rescue. The actual BMCs are expansion boards, plugged into the empty slots marked OCP2 [smaller one, no chage] or OCP3 [the big black cage on the bottom right corner] on the rear backplane, Wendel actually mentionned that in the server overview vid.
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INTPeanut
Well, that was, I mean, well, it's not that I want to be, nah it's okay, cos it's true right, when I say that this, well, what I mean to say is, cos that's the point of the comments section right, is feedback and comments, so, I guess it's fine to say, at least, I hope it's fine to say, this wasn't as detailed as I was hoping, though to be fair, cos I do want to be fair, I don't want to be a jerk obviously, the guy is a power nerd, so should be expected, I just didn't know was so narrow.
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Well, that was, I mean, well, it's not that I want to be, nah it's okay, cos it's true right, when I say that this, well, what I mean to say is, cos that's the point of the comments section right, is feedback and comments, so, I guess it's fine to say, at least, I hope it's fine to say, this wasn't as detailed as I was hoping, though to be fair, cos I do want to be fair, I don't want to be a jerk obviously, the guy is a power nerd, so should be expected, I just didn't know was so narrow.
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vonkruel
For my next home server build I'm looking for a single socket SP3 board that's appropriate for a regular PC chassis with relatively poor airflow over the VRMs (compared to the insane airflow in rack-mounted server chassis. So that means a somewhat beefier VRM than shown here and/or a decent heatsink on the VRM. I will be using air cooling on the processor (EPYC 7302P) which should help cool the VRM a little. If anyone else is considering a similar build, what mainboard are you looking at?
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For my next home server build I'm looking for a single socket SP3 board that's appropriate for a regular PC chassis with relatively poor airflow over the VRMs (compared to the insane airflow in rack-mounted server chassis. So that means a somewhat beefier VRM than shown here and/or a decent heatsink on the VRM. I will be using air cooling on the processor (EPYC 7302P) which should help cool the VRM a little. If anyone else is considering a similar build, what mainboard are you looking at?
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Freedom
I miss my delta fans. I used to have a 120x120x90mm all copper rad that I had a 38mm delta either side of. With a voltage controller they'd just about run at 1200 rpm but full bore was like 5000-6500 rpm or something like that( Can't remember they were rated for 300 CFM I think) They would take off of turned on without being bolted to something. I mean they didn't reduce temperatures all that much at full speed but it was just for the lulz mostly but I did run an fx8120 at 5ghz on it: )
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I miss my delta fans. I used to have a 120x120x90mm all copper rad that I had a 38mm delta either side of. With a voltage controller they'd just about run at 1200 rpm but full bore was like 5000-6500 rpm or something like that( Can't remember they were rated for 300 CFM I think) They would take off of turned on without being bolted to something. I mean they didn't reduce temperatures all that much at full speed but it was just for the lulz mostly but I did run an fx8120 at 5ghz on it: )
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