New AM2 board, what brand?

[Ark42]

Abit, Asus, Gigabyte, or MSI? Any of those companies still known to have bad capacitors on new boards? I'm leaning towards getting some Abit KN9's. I really like boards with no fans.

[gonzo0815]

Re: New AM2 board, what brand?

At the moment i think, Gigabyte, Asus and MSI all are using some respekted cap brands. I would choose an board with at least 3 phase vrm, then it should be no problem.

[Topcat]

Re: New AM2 board, what brand?

I've seen a quite a few later model Asus boards with OST caps in them....we all know how high-end those are.... I believe Abit uses primarily Rubycon MBZ and MCZ caps nowadays, so they get my thumbs up.

[Fatal0E]

Re: New AM2 board, what brand?

I have had no problems lately with Abit or Asus. Asus is pretty much all Panasonic and Chemicon these days. I have seen a ton of dead Gigabyte boards lately, 4-6 months in age, but they have good caps. I really dont care for MSI boards at all, seems they are often flaky out of the box and go downhill with age.

[Ark42]

Re: New AM2 board, what brand?

Does the Abit KN9 have a 3 phase VRM?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813127236

[Per Hansson]

Re: New AM2 board, what brand?

Does the Abit KN9 have a 3 phase VRM?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813127236

Looks so, it has 3 coils next to the heatsink covering the Mosfets...

http://www2.abit.com.tw/page/au/moth...AM2&DEFTITLE=Y

[gonzo0815]

Re: New AM2 board, what brand?

Does the Abit KN9 have a 3 phase VRM?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813127236

I sew 3 coils and one input coil. therefore i assume that this board as an 3 phase vrm. Furthermore i don`t think Abit will build sutch a bord with only 2 phase vrm.

Regarding Ost caps, i recently noticed, that most Asrock Boards reintroduced them, as vrm O/P caps. Shure, ost isn`t that good, but as the o/p caps did not get stressed mutch i think i can tolerate this.
In my opinion, Ost caps are ok if they musst not handle mutch ripple current. And the highest ripple currents are always at the input of an buck smps.
In any way, time will tell if i am right.
At the moment i don`t have one of that board at my own, so i can`t recap one of those to see if they getting better in any respeckt with good MCZ caps.

[linuxguru]

Re: New AM2 board, what brand?

Actually, the input caps are stressed much less than the output caps in a buck converter - the ripple currents are higher at Vcore end of the VRM. Therefore, VRM O/P caps are critical for low-ESR, high ripple current and endurance. The VRM I/P caps are not very critical, especially if they're at +12v as in P4 mobos.

After seeing Nichicon HN/HM as well as occasional Rubycon MCZ/MBZ failures at the VRM O/P, I can only recommend non-aqueous high-endurance caps there - Nichicon PW, Panasonic FK/FM and Chemicon LXZ.

[gonzo0815]

Re: New AM2 board, what brand?

I`ve read some app notes of those vrm chips (http://www.st.com/stonline/products/...e/an/9220.htm), and as far as i remember, there are some figgures to the ripple current. And all i have learned from that was, that there are very high ripple current on the i/p caps, and that the voltage drop from load transients depends on ESR (and of course the capacity in a second place).
Clearly, this picture depens on the number of phases, e.g the more phases the lower the ripple current.
So if aqueaouse caps fail on o/P, i doubth that ripple current is the problem (as they have always the lower ESR). IMHO the heat from the vrm mosfets or the coils would probably be the problem. Ant that is something, non aqueaouse caps can handlere far better.