Desktop Computer Motherboard Meeting The Components

Desktop Computer Motherboard Meeting The Components

The main components of a voltage regulator circuit are the already mentioned chokes
(which can be manufactured using two materials, iron or ferrite), transistors and
electrolytic capacitors (good motherboards will provide solid capacitors, which are better).
The transistors used on the voltage regulator circuit are manufactured under a technology
called MOSFET (Metal-Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) and many people call
them simply “MOSFET” (some motherboards, in particular the ones from MSI based on
"DrMOS" technology, use integrated circuits instead of transistors). Some motherboards
come with a passive heatsink on top of these transistors to cool them down, which is a
desirable feature. There are other very important components present on this circuit,
especially integrated circuits. You will always find an integrated circuit called “PWM
controller” and in good designs a tiny one called “MOSFET driver.” We will explain what
they do later.



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Figure 2: A close-up on the main voltage regulator circuit.
















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Figure 3: Motherboard with passive heatsink on top of the transistors.

Now let’s talk a little bit more about each component.

As mentioned, you can find two kinds of chokes on the voltage regulator circuit: iron

or ferrite. Ferrite chokes are better as they provide a lower power loss compared to

iron chokes (25% lower, according to Gigabyte), a lower electromagnetic interference

(EMI) and have a better resistance to rust. It is easy to tell them apart: iron chokes

are usually “opened” and you can see a thick copper wire inside, while ferrite chokes

are “closed” and usually have a marking starting with the letter “R” on top. On Figures

4 and 5 we show you the difference between them. There is one exception, though.

There are ferrite chokes that are big, rounded and opened, shown in Figure 6. It is

very easy to identify this kind of ferrite choke, as it is rounded instead of squared.

The voltage regulator circuit will have one choke per “phase” or “channel.” Don’t worry

about this now as we will explain what this is in detail later

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Figure 4: Iron choke.