- Joined
- Jun 24, 2015
- Messages
- 8,184 (2.36/day)
- Location
- Western Canada
| System Name | ab┃ob |
|---|---|
| Processor | 7800X3D┃5800X3D |
| Motherboard | B650E PG-ITX┃X570 Impact |
| Cooling | NH-U12A + T30┃AXP120-x67 |
| Memory | 64GB 6400CL32┃32GB 3600CL14 |
| Video Card(s) | RTX 4070 Ti Eagle┃RTX A2000 |
| Storage | 8TB of SSDs┃1TB SN550 |
| Case | Caselabs S3┃Lazer3D HT5 |
This guy on this video timestamp talks about the capacitors but he is not good at explaining anything concisely, and unfortunately comes off as pretentious in his videos (it is very tedious for me to listen to him talk). It is actually not clear to me whether he actually knows what he is talking about. He appears to call these flat capacitors "SMD aluminum polymer capacitors", but I think the correct name is actually more along the lines of POSCAP (electrolytic) (with aluminum instead of tantalum perhaps?), as you suggest (not sure). The guy in this video appears to suggest that the POSCAPs are better which is why I had this question. Anyway thanks for the info I will try to look into this on Wikipedia maybe or something, next weekend.
I found this explanation https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-differences-between-electrolytic-tantalum-and-ceramic-capacitors, which appears to be more reliable information. As of now, I am just learning here and there, and hoping for the best. Perhaps it is best to take some type of electrical engineering online course or something.
buildzoid is right here on TPU too, if you have concerns/gripes you want to take up with him. Impact was an old video, he had a newer video explaining the difference between POSCAP and SP-CAP. Can't fault you for not wanting to listen to his long-winded rants, it's an acquired taste and tedious..............and the Impact isn't really that good at any type of OC like he made it out to be...................
POSCAP is not a type of cap, it's a Panasonic trademark specifically for their flat package tantalum polymers. There is no aluminium polymer POSCAP because it doesn't exist......you can go on any electronic parts supplier website or Panasonic themselves and check for yourself.
POSCAPs are pretty easy to identify (iirc) - at least for the 470µF versions that are common on high end/ITX motherboards, the grey stripe on them is always of a very bright colour, light grey or almost white. The Impact only has them on the back of the board (memory VRM or something). I have another board, B550I Aorus Pro AX, and it has a couple of POSCAPs on output filter, easy to spot.
Amongst caps, MLCCs are probably at the top of the list for performance, followed by some mix of SPCAP and POSCAP depending on what you're using them for. But there's a ton of different flat polymers of various manufacturers with various materials and specs, and some of them are better than others, and depends on which rated spec you care about for the specific application.
Regular cylindrical through-hole polymers are really not very special compared to any of the other caps, it's really not close. The all the Z590/Z690 2DIMM boards' choice of caps should tell you all you need to know about that. But at the same time, caps really don't come into play for most regular users of motherboards; a dozen other VRM design/performance issues will rear their head before caps are really a consideration. Unless Board 1 and Board 2 are of identical design except for their caps, you can't just say that Board 1 is better because it uses SMD polymers while Board 2 uses through-hole polymers. When OCers are talking about cap choice they're just making sure caps aren't going to hold them back and prevent them from beating the next dude on the leaderboards by a hair's width
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I am so glad that you had a great experience. My experience was very similar to you. When I put the 9th gen CPU and started the system, it was as if the motherboard was made for this CPU. 
