Power Consumption and Temperatures

With the test bench update, I have also overhauled my temperature measurement and methodology. For measurement, I now use a Reed SD-947 4 channel Data Logging Thermometer paired with four Omega Engineering SA1 Self Adhesive Thermocouple probes. One probe directly touches the chipset and two are placed on select power stages. The last probe actively logs the ambient temperature.


For the ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming X, one is in the center of the left bank Vcore, and one is put on the top Vcore next to the SOC power stages. A probe is left out to log the ambient temperature. All temperatures are presented as Delta-T, which is the measured temperature minus the ambient temperature. Additionally, there is no longer any direct airflow over the VRM with this new setup, placing extra strain on the VRM cooling.

For the numbers seen in the chart above, I use wPrime for both temperature and power draw as it is the most intense. However, relatively short tests do not put enough strain on the system to get a look at how the VRM performs at the limit, so I added an additional test that thermally abuses Vcore as much as possible. It involves a 30 minute Prime95 run at the maximum overclock the motherboard can maintain, again with no airflow over the VRM. The temperatures are logged every second, and the two probes are then averaged for a cleaner presentation before subtracting the ambient to calculate the Delta-T. The results are charted below.


The ultra efficient power stages on the ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming ITX/TB3 combined with the unique heatsink/rear I/O shroud kept this board cool no matter what I threw at it.

Interestingly, the heat pipe that connects the chipset to the VRM heatsink lead to statistically significant temperature increases in the left bank of VRM at idle. The increase is nowhere near dangerous and in fact a positive sign that the heatpipe is doing its job, as it allows the extra cooling capacity of the VRM heatsink keep chipset fan speed as low as possible.