Monday, November 7th 2011

Gigabyte Shows Off 3D Power Technology for Upcoming Motherboards

Last week we got a glimpse of Gigabyte's new 3D BIOS technology, a UEFI setup program with an innovative and functional user interface built into Gigabyte's upcoming X79 motherboards. Today Gigabyte released a new video detailing another such innovation, called 3D Power. This program gives you total and unrestricted control over the three main dimensions of your motherboard's power delivery: voltages, PWM frequency, and phase control. Gigabyte announced that all its upcoming X79 motherboards will feature PWM (pulse width modulation) CPU power design, backed by highly capable PWM controllers that give you a plethora of things you can tweak.

To begin with, the 3D Power application starts up with a cube that has the icons of the three main elements. Clicking on "voltage" gives you control over voltage-related settings in three main pages, turbo voltage response, load line calibration (active V-droop control), and active over-voltage protection. Load line calibration allows you to fine-tune the extant of V-droop correction over a variety of power domains, such as CPU, VTT, IMC, and DRAM.
Moving on to Phase Control, and this page gives you settings related to the phases. You can select the number of CPU phases you want active (from the number available), and thereby balance efficiency and power delivery, to do this you can select between six phase-arrangement presets from "Lite Power" all the way up to "Extreme Performance". Then there are other pages that let you configure thermal protection.

Lastly there's frequency. Pulse width modulation is a method of controlling power-delivery by delivering power in pulses to inertial electrical devices. PWM frequency related pages give you access to some very low-level settings such as CPU, VTT, IMC, and DRAM PWM frequencies.

Unlike 3D BIOS, which resides on the motherboard's EEPROM and can be invoked by hitting DEL on system startup, 3D Power is a Windows-based application. One can expect most settings not to be on-the-fly, and requiring system restarts. A press video from Gigabyte can be watched here.
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19 Comments on Gigabyte Shows Off 3D Power Technology for Upcoming Motherboards

#1
RejZoR
Required restarts render any apps absolutely useless. What's the point of it if you have to restart anyway? You may just as well do it through UEFI or BIOS...
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#2
LDNL
This is just getting way out of hand. The BIOS should be a sacred place to those that know their way around it yet feared by whoever would venture there for the first time.
Posted on Reply
#3
zsolt_93
I don't want this.... I'd want no UEFI too. It's making everything look cheap. Especially how a few uefi interfaces look. The only one i liked was the one I saw on a MSI board. Gigabyte was my last hope of keeping bios alive. You can make mistakes in the bios but it's simple and straightforward, whereas in a more advanced setup utility there is a higher chance that something goes wrong at software level or it interprets your actions with a delay resulting in incorrect settings and possible damage.
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#4
Steven B
why would they not be on the fly?
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#5
Grings
I bet if they hadn't made their new Bios so flash there would have been room to fit these features in it.
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#7
pr0n Inspector
This is why you should not let marketing design your UI.
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#8
micropage7
3d power?
looks like very marketing words.
Posted on Reply
#9
HalfAHertz
Bah you know how those MB promos are with their pr0 engrish language. Maybe somebody forgot to put an "r" between the 3 and the "d" because there exactly 0% 3d in that interface, unless of course that cube is swiveling or something...
Posted on Reply
#10
buggalugs
Some motherboard makers are missing the point with UEFI, its not to make the bios look more pretty and give you big icons, it is to have a faster boot, to have mouse control to make setting changes easier and quicker, and to support new features.

We dont want a glorified easytune with humungous icons.
Posted on Reply
#11
dj-electric
Fancy shmancy bios wont change facts - with shity VDROOP and lack of advance options in the bios you better work on adding them instead of F&*king around. #ThankGodForAsus&Asrock

Just something to add, till now i had GB MSI and Asus 1155 mobos and just by looking at bioses i cannot understand why i used GB and MSI. How those manufactures are not emberassed by the lack of options in the bios? long live the ability (my ability) to achieve 5GHZ at 1.37V and not 1.42 or 1.43 volts.
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#12
Steven B
Just something I am going to say 1 time.

if people haven't noticed or didn't hear the new flash, GIGABYTE has moved over to Digital PWMs, which offer MUCH MUCh more user tweaking in real-time and through BIOS. it is one of the greatest advantage of Digital PWm technology, as the PWM has on-board NVM. Now GB is using an un-released VRD12/12.5 Internation Rectifer Digital 8 phase PWM, its basically an upgraded Chil 8-Phase PMW you see on the Maximus 4 Extreme. ASUS for their X79 board has an updated Chil PWM the same technology and VRD12 and 12.5 cert as the one GB is using.

International Rectifier bought Chil about a year ago, and since then they have basically rebranded Chil PWMs with their own name. Selling the same product just a bit different. The ASUS is 7+1 phases and the GB is 6+2, both can have the capability for 8 phase operation.
Don't expect the Vdroop that was seen on the LGA1155 GB boards as GB has revamped their entire VRM.

#1 this in-windows utility is like Digi+ VRM utility ASUS has, its realtime VRM/PWM changes through windows. Without restart.

#2 all these settings are in the BIOS as well, you can see them in the 3D BIOS video.
Posted on Reply
#13
Completely Bonkers
Perhaps this is a nice feature set, but I dont like the branding. "3D power" indeed!
Posted on Reply
#14
[H]@RD5TUFF
I don't want a skinned bios I want UEFI . ..
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#15
micropage7
[H]@RD5TUFFI don't want a skinned bios I want IEFI . ..
but some people may choose skinned uefi than plain looks uefi :D
Posted on Reply
#16
[H]@RD5TUFF
micropage7but some people may choose skinned uefi than plain looks uefi :D
I suppose. . .
Posted on Reply
#17
de.das.dude
Pro Indian Modder
they are invadingthe purity of the BIOS!
Posted on Reply
#18
Bundy
Steven BJust something I am going to say 1 time.

if people haven't noticed or didn't hear the new flash, GIGABYTE has moved over to Digital PWMs, which offer MUCH MUCh more user tweaking in real-time and through BIOS. it is one of the greatest advantage of Digital PWm technology, as the PWM has on-board NVM. Now GB is using an un-released VRD12/12.5 Internation Rectifer Digital 8 phase PWM, its basically an upgraded Chil 8-Phase PMW you see on the Maximus 4 Extreme. ASUS for their X79 board has an updated Chil PWM the same technology and VRD12 and 12.5 cert as the one GB is using.

International Rectifier bought Chil about a year ago, and since then they have basically rebranded Chil PWMs with their own name. Selling the same product just a bit different. The ASUS is 7+1 phases and the GB is 6+2, both can have the capability for 8 phase operation.
Don't expect the Vdroop that was seen on the LGA1155 GB boards as GB has revamped their entire VRM.

#1 this in-windows utility is like Digi+ VRM utility ASUS has, its realtime VRM/PWM changes through windows. Without restart.

#2 all these settings are in the BIOS as well, you can see them in the 3D BIOS video.
This is very interesting, thanks Steven. Would it be possible for you to elaborate and explain the above in the context of UD3, UD5, OC and Assasin? They all have different VRM configurations and I think you are referring to the Assasin. Are the others the same?
Posted on Reply
#19
SteelSix
Hayder_MasterCome on kids let's burn some PC hardwares.
Exactly. :shadedshu

Someone take the Dev's Sega Genesis away please..
Posted on Reply
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