Why do Intel boards tend to have a higher VRM count than equivalent AMD motherboards?

[billy_bob_]

As the title says, could anyone say why Intel boards tend to have a higher number of power phases (VRMs) than their equivalent AMD motherboards?

I'm not sure it's always the case, but I was comparing P55 to AM3+, and the P55 seem to have more phases, but they have the same TDPs.

I would have initially guessed you only need a certain number of phases for a certain power draw, so they would have phases corresponding only to their current requirement and therefore power usage, but the Intel CPUs are not significantly more power hungry - so at a guess, is it the case that Intel CPUs are more sensitive to voltage instability, so need more phases for this reason, but AMD chose to be more voltage fluctuation tolerant to keep the cost of the boards lower?

 

[Gam3r01]

Well you compared a chipset to a socket, so thats not an even comparison.
You should have compared the P55 chipset to a 990fx chipset, OR compared the LGA 1156 socket to the AM3+ socket.

 

[billy_bob_]

OK, if you want to be pedantic, make either of those comparisons. The question however was only about AMD boards and equivalent Intel boards, whatever they may be, it's so common that I have never seen a single exception to the rule.

An example I gave compared P55 boards to AM3+ boards, but I can assure you the VRM count logic is pretty much the same for all AM3+ and AM3 boards (4,6,8 phases for CPU, 4=entry level, 6=overclock friendly, and 8=enthusiast and 1,2 phases for RAM, 1=entry level, 2=overclock friendly) so you can compare P55 to AMD 870, which seems the most like for like, and actually that logic carries over to all AM3+ motherboards (and AM3) pretty much, whereas all the Intel boards I've seen have greater VRM counts than this for the same TDP, only the lowest power and lowest spec boards have this low VRM count.

So compare P55 boards to AMD 870
or typical LGA 1156 boards to typical AM3+ boards

.. and you'll generally find this to be true.