ECS X79R-AX Motherboard
Voltage Regulator
Contents
The CPU voltage regulator circuit of the ECS X79R-AX has 12 phases for the CPU main voltage (Vcc a.k.a. Vcore), two for the CPU VSA voltage (memory controller), and two for the CPU VTT voltage (PCI Express and DMI interfaces). Therefore, it uses a “12+2+2” configuration. The voltage regulator is controlled by an ISL6366 integrated circuit.
Figure 11: Voltage regulator circuit
The ECS X79R-AX uses a mix of solid and SMD (a.k.a. highly-conductive polymerized or simply Hi-c) electrolytic capacitors in its main voltage regulator circuit. All coils on this motherboard are ferrite-core models, which can provide up to 20% improvement in efficiency. The rest of the electrolytic capacitors used on this motherboard are solid.
Each main phase is controlled by an FDMG6705V integrated circuit, which combines the three required transistors (“high side,” “low side,” and “driver”) in a single chip. It also allows the switching clock to be at 1 MHz, which allows efficiency to be over 90 percent. (Usually, voltage regulator circuits switch at 250 kHz.)
If you want to learn more about the voltage regulator circuit, please read our tutorial on the subject.