MSI Radeon RX 580 Mech 2 8GB - Polaris battle suit from the crowbar | Page 2

The board is a multi-layer design and differs considerably from the old reference layout of the Radeon RX 480. We now take a closer look at the board and at first glance immediately see the much-advertised six real supply phases for the GPU, all of which are fed from the external 12V port, which should theoretically be enough. But we also know MSI and the somewhat nonchalant handling of power limits still from the R9 390X Gaming 8GB.

MSI has solved the board layout quite cleverly and also limes a little into the creativity corner when it is being set. Let them be allowed, because the solution is already reasonably smart. But I'll get to that in a while.

I don't have to miss out on manual assembly at this point, because everything sits pretty much exactly in its place and not as windswept as with some competitors. The soldering quality of the board is in order in any case, the simple surface sealing of the back is also.

So, now I come back to what MSI has implemented here as a power supply. In this performance class, one relies on a rather rarely used uP9505 from uPI Semiconductor. Rare because it is actually a rather cheap 4+2 PWM controller, whose 4 phases for the VDD (there were also 1, 2 and 3) as well as the 2 other for the VDDA rather simple layouts should be reserved. However, the chip also offers a special mode that allows all 6 phases to be assigned to the VDD.

The power supply for the memory is fed from the motherboard slot anyway and has also assigned these two phases spatially closer to the source. Since one does not use a load balancer and split supply, all 6 GPU phases are therefore attached to the one socket. Is that going well? Let us be surprised. As an input filter, you rely on a simple coil with 330 nH.

With the little-documented UGF 835 as a gate driver, MSI relies on the control of UBIQ's highly integrated PowerStage M3816N chip, which contains high and low-side, as well as the necessary Schottky diode, for each of the six GPU phases (VDD).

As usual, the SFC-labelled coils are "Super Ferrite Chokes" from Lianzhen Electronics. Not a bad choice, by the way, because the tolerances of the coils are quite low in terms of a possible fiepen. The memory comes from Micron and not from most of Samsung's other RX 580s. The MT51K256M32HF-60 N is a total of eight simple 8Gb modules GDDR5 (256Mb x32) with 6.0 Gb/s at 1.35V nominal operating voltage.

The power supply of the memory is provided by two phases, which in turn rely on the PowerStage chip M3816N from UBIQ, and the coils are also the same. However, the control is done separately via a simple GS7256 from GStek.

MSI also relies on a single BIOS, probably also for cost reasons. The position of the chip and its power supply directly below the edge of the GPU socket is rather unusual, because so the BIOS is actually located in one of the suspected hotspots. We will see later whether this might even become critical, or not. According to the key, the SMD component could be a voltage detector, because the usual monitoring chip has been gallantly dispensed with.

Overall, the board is well-considered and functionally layoutd and also very functionally equipped. However, we can see the efforts to save a little money. This doesn't even have to have negative consequences if you just approach it creatively enough.

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