Gigabyte X299 Gaming 9 Motherboard VRM Analysis & Heat Calculations

X299 VRM thermals have been a topic of interest in the lab lately, as we’ve continued to learn how to work with our new power testing tools and have fully revamped CPU thermal testing. The time will come eventually, but for now, we’ve worked with Buildzoid to run some calculations on VRM thermals with the Gigabyte X299 Gaming 9 motherboard. These numbers are based off of GN testing for this video, where we overclocked the CPU to 4.5~4.6GHz and checked for power consumption at the 8-pin headers (of which there are two).

The Gigabyte X299 Gaming 9 motherboard makes some interesting choices with its VRM components, ultimately balancing between “ridiculous overkill,” to quote Buildzoid, and merely adequacy. The board is one of the higher quality motherboards out there right now, and so is worth a watch on the PCB break-down:

As for other updates, we’re presently traveling and will return to testing post-event. Lots of cool content pieces coming up this week, as seems to be the trend lately due to hardware launches.

Buildzoid’s PCB analysis is above.

Editorial: Steve Burke
PCB Analysis: Buildzoid
Timestamps: Andrew Coleman