ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming X – VRM Analysis

A few days ago, we released our review of the ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming X (Italian), a motherboard that needs no introduction thanks to its solid design, quality construction and on-board features; this board received our Hardware Platinum Award, and today we’ll take a deep dive into its VRM, to see if the power delivery section is on par with the rest of the mainboard.

The VCore section of the ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming X is overbuilt, overkill and overpowered, featuring the controller Intersil ISL69147, which can be seen as the AMD-only version of the ISL69138, handling a maximum of 7 phases, with 14 SiC634 phases from Vishay, each one rated for 50A.

Obviously, 14 phases are achieved thank to the PWM Intersil 6617A doublers (duplicating the 6 phases for the CPU and the single one for the SOC), a smart doubler integrating load balancing (load and temperature-based), current monitoring and overvoltage protection.

Let’s take a look at the efficiency of the VRM with the heat output of the VCore based on the load:

100A to 200A is the range in which the R7 3800X, R9 3900X and R9 3950X would normally operate, ranging from stock clocks to ambient-cooling overclock, and yet the total heat produced by its phases will easily be handled by the massive heatsinks installed on the VRMs; the higher current values are usually for Liquid Nitrogen overclocking whereas the last value (600A) is the maximum amount of current that will be handled, continuously, by the VCore VRMs.

The phases are cooled by two aluminium blocks (Super Alloy XXL) with a substantial mass and have “aerodynamic” fins to improve heat dissipation. The armour plate, located on the back of the motherboard, provides structural solidity, but no sort of cooling.