Power Efficiency & EMI: Low EMI, DIGI+ VRM, Digital Power Design

[jiewmeng]

I am leaning towards ASUS for its Low EMI & Power Efficiency Features and would like to learn more about them to select the right Motherboard.

I am looking at the following boards for my new build

- H67M PRO
- Z68 V
- P67M PRO

From my understanding, Low EMI(eg. in ASUS H67M PRO) will protect my health (thats important condering I sit next to the PC most of the day)? Z68 does not have this but have more phase power design & DIGI+ VRM. Perhaps H67/Low EMI will protect my health better but Z68 will save more power?

Low EMI

Radiation Scan: Protect 3.0 motherboards effectively reduce 50% radiation. A special low-radiation design shields you from harmful electromagnetic exposure by eliminating 50% of radiation.

DIGI+ VRM

Also would like to learn more about the features for power efficiency. Like some boards have 4+2 Phase power (eg. H67M PRO) design some 16 Phase power design (Z68 V). Is 16 Phase alot better or something?

How will DIGI+ VRM (eg from Z68 V) benefit vs non in H67 M PRO?

Also since Z68 has more components being a full ATX board, if I dont use these components, will they waste power also?

Which board will you recommend for heath & power efficiency, I am willing to pay abit more for health. Also if it has significant power bill savings in the mid-long run say 2 years, I am willing to pay more for that too

 

[Leaps-from-Shadows]

Electro-Magnetic Interference (EMI) doesn't really affect you -- I think you get more radiation exposure from the power lines near your house than from your computer. EMI affects the electronic components around the computer. If you have a radio near the system and it gets static or a TV that gets snow or those lines through the picture when the computer is on, you enable Spread Spectrum and that lessens the EMI.

In general, the less components on the board, the less power it will use. On a board with more features than you need, you can disable some things to save power. Mostly we're talking about a couple of watts here or there -- the Sandy Bridge CPUs are designed to be quite power efficient.

The power phase design of the mainboard doesn't affect efficiency. It supposedly affects overclocking -- more power phases equals smoother power going to the CPU which theoretically means higher overclocking. For Sandy Bridge systems, overclocking depends more on the CPU than on the power phases.

 

[jiewmeng]

hmm ... so in other words those "power" features are more of gimics? Or I can say I wont need them if I dont overclock?

 

[Leaps-from-Shadows]

I don't know that I'd call them a gimmick, but they aren't absolutely proven to increase overclocking potential. We did just fine with overclocking before Digi+ and the other fancy names came along.

You definitely don't need more than eight-phase power if you're not going to overclock. You can get higher, but it won't do you any good. And most boards will detect how much power you CPU actually needs and shut off any extra phases, so that will save a bit of power there.

 

[jiewmeng]

Best answer selected by jiewmeng.