PWM Doubler Shortage Causes Gigabyte Motherboard Redesign - Exclusive

[WYP]

Other manufacturers are expected to follow suit.



Read more about PWM Phase Doubler shortages forcing motherboard redesigns.

[demonking]

Good!
Lots of dodgy marketing around these doublers, much like the AMD lawsuit of is actually 8 cores/8 phases. 2 VRMS, 1 controller is not 2 phases its like a 1+1 phase and we had quite a few boards advertising 8, 10 or even 12 phase when they only used half that number of controllers.

[WYP]

Originally Posted by demonking

Good!
Lots of dodgy marketing around these doublers, much like the AMD lawsuit of is actually 8 cores/8 phases. 2 VRMS, 1 controller is not 2 phases its like a 1+1 phase and we had quite a few boards advertising 8, 10 or even 12 phase when they only used half that number of controllers.

To be fair they are giving customers the correct number of power phases, it's just the controller that's somewhat sub-optimal.

There are plenty of decent motherboards with phase doublers, and it can offer consumers a lot of value. I don't think it is lawsuit material. A lot of people have overstated the downsides of phase doublers. It's sub-optimal, but not terrible.

[demonking]

Originally Posted by WYP

To be fair they are giving customers the correct number of power phases, it's just the controller that's somewhat sub-optimal.

There are plenty of decent motherboards with phase doublers, and it can offer consumers a lot of value. I don't think it is lawsuit material. A lot of people have overstated the downsides of phase doublers. It's sub-optimal, but not terrible.

This is yet to be seen, i'd say this is exactly like the AMD case, advertising 8 cores, which it in a sense did have but as each core had to share the FP scheduler with another they were not classed as individual "cores". The phase counting should be the same, 1 capacitor, 1 choke and 1 controller, this is what is considered a phase and always was until doublers got added. If the VRM has to share a controller then its not a full phase, just like a bulldozer core sharing an FPU. There is no definition on what a "core" is but the courts agreed that due to previous iterations by AMD themselves and their competition that these were not built in the same way as all other "cores" and advertising them as 8 cores is misleading
I don't disagree that there is nothing wrong with power delivery systems that use this setup, as a lot of them do and work extremely well but this is misleading in the same way.

[WYP]

Originally Posted by demonking

This is yet to be seen, i'd say this is exactly like the AMD case, advertising 8 cores, which it in a sense did have but as each core had to share the FP scheduler with another they were not classed as individual "cores". The phase counting should be the same, 1 capacitor, 1 choke and 1 controller, this is what is considered a phase and always was until doublers got added. If the VRM has to share a controller then its not a full phase, just like a bulldozer core sharing an FPU. There is no definition on what a "core" is but the courts agreed that due to previous iterations by AMD themselves and their competition that these were not built in the same way as all other "cores" and advertising them as 8 cores is misleading
I don't disagree that there is nothing wrong with power delivery systems that use this setup, as a lot of them do and work extremely well but this is misleading in the same way.

All the phases are controlled by a single controller anyway, it's just that what would be a 6-phase controller is being used to control 12 phased through doublers.

I know what you mean when you say "1 capacitor, 1 choke and 1 controller", but I feel that this should be clarified in case it confuses anyone on the forums.

TBH, I don't think that AMD was misleading with the whole Bulldozer core thing. AMD had to pay a settlement because it was a terrible idea to allow courts to decide what is ok within a computational architecture. If that even happened, avenues for innovation would be forever closed.

I just don't see a class action in phase doublers as the physical phases are still there.

[Kleptobot]

The physical phases are still there, calm down. Calling for a lawsuit is absurd. As WYP said there is still only one controller, nothing has been misrepresented. If you put a scope on each phase you would see that you had the correct number all running at the correct phase angle.

[boria0]

This article made it's way into Gamers Nexus video. Well done