In the fi rst of a new series of guest columns Tim Handley,
head honcho for Gigabyte, gives us his thoughts on
overclockers and overclocking.
Overclocking has been around for as long as PC DIY,
but it is only recently that hardware vendors have
really gotten behind it and started designing products
that are meant to be pushed beyond their standard
settings. The result for the PC industry is a dramatic
increase in the quality of products as R&D teams strive
to reduce the after sale service costs that result from
overstressed onboard components and PCB issues.
To put it simply, it makes sense for hardware vendors
to ‘overspec’ their high-end products to reduce the
risk of RMA over the product’s warranty period.
Brittle and buckled PCBs are
a regular sore point for RMA
teams in regions with high
numbers of overclockers
Modern motherboard design is a good example
of ‘over-specifi cation’ where the top brands all use
Japanese solid capacitors, ferrite core chokes and low
RDS (on) MOSFETs on their high-end models. In the
past this would be seen as overkill considering that
most of these motherboard models have six or more
power phases for the CPU. However, when you have
people running their CPUs at twice the recommended
speed, those power phases are doing more than
twice their recommended workload because the CPU
power consumption increases exponentially, not in
a linear fashion.
Now if the overclocking power requirement is
stressful then there must be huge thermal stresses
that motherboards endure –
Overclockers
ensure better
testing by
vendors.
not many older boards have
been tested to run at negative
temps I’m sure! Brittle and
buckled PCBs are a regular
sore point for RMA teams in
regions with high numbers
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WWW.THEOVERCLOCKER.COM 11
GUEST COLUMN
Tim gives
some fatherly
beer advice
to Hicookie.
of overclockers. This partly explains why Gigabyte
recently introduced the Ultra Durable 3 series of
motherboards with two ounce (2oz) copper layers in the
PCB. In addition to the thermal and reduced impedance
benefi ts, 2oz copper layers provide a sturdier platform
for overclockers to bolt down their heavy LN2 pots and
that means less RMA costs. That’s why I reckon 2oz
copper PCBs will become an industry standard for all
high-end brands in 2009.
There was a commotion at work the other day when
our R&D guys were installing a new testing apparatus
that they dubbed ‘The Torture Chamber’. The picture
above shows a torture chamber that is testing a board
at -10° C. This particular chamber has a thermal range
of -45°C to 50°C and can test four boards at a time.
The PSUs and HDDs would freeze up at those temps
so they have to run externally. This brings me back to
the point of this column: motherboard makers would
not usually be testing their products (and the third
party components on their boards, e.g. MOSFETs)
for extreme thermal operation, but now that we
understand how overclockers are abusing boards we
are taking measures to reduce the likelihood of RMA
costs by using better quality components and doing
more comprehensive testing in the R&D stages of
product development.
At the end of the day everyone benefi ts from better
quality products and more stable products!
What do you think? Are copper layers proving more
stable? Let us know at the usual places!
Gigabyte’s
motherboard
torture chamber.
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