EPU and TPU Dual Intelligent Processors – What are they?
In a time when CPUs have become tied to chipsets from the same maker, it’s become more and more difficult to see tangible differences between motherboard manufacturers.
The most obvious difference is, of course, colour, with PCBs and plastic parts giving a very visual change from one another. However the trend is shifting everyone towards a customer demanded ‘black’ style only, reducing variation. There’s also more subtle PCI/PCI-Express slot differences and even occasionally feature differences for things like USB 3 and SATA 6Gbps, but for the most part the ICs used are also largely the same as the third-party hardware is available to all.
In the last few years motherboard companies have tried to differentiate themselves in other ways, with ASUS in particular taking to the approach of creating its own supplementary hardware, that work to better the whole user experience. This started with its Republic of Gamer boards, which received specially designed hardware to aid overclocking, and more recently, remote monitoring over USB or Bluetooth. Around the same time its consumer boards firstly received an EPU – its Energy Processing Unit – then more recently a TPU – the TurboV Processing Unit – to complement it.
These two have been paired together since the launch of the ASUS P7P series and M4A series, based on the Intel LGA1156/P55 platform and AMD AM3/800-series platform respectively, so the chances are if you bought an ASUS board this year it already has them.
Adding a Zen of PC Balance
Co-operatively these Dual Intelligent Processors aim to optimise the entire PC, balancing power use with performance across the CPU, chipset, memory, graphics cards, hard drives and system fans. Because they are made as hardware not software, all this can happen without requiring user interaction and without the expense of CPU cycles, system resources and with any OS or virtualised environment.
That said, they are customisable for power users through the additional software, and it will let you tweak and play with the settings to best suit your needs. That means either tuning the EPU in ASUS’ AI Suite to save power or dynamically overclock, or, getting the TPU to read preceise, realtime voltage and temperatures, as well as offering close to BIOS-level overclocking tools within Windows.
Power and Control
Whereas the EPU handles all the hardware that gets plugged into a motherboard listed above, the TPU is the umbrella holder for other ASUS technologies, including:
For compatibility: MemOK!
For easy performance tuning: AutoTuning, OC Tuner, Turbo Key II, CPU Level UP, GPU Boost, Enhanced GPU SpeedStep, Core Unlocker and Turbo Unlocker
For advanced performance tuning and extra tools: Precision Tweaker 2, Turbo Key, TurboV Remote and TurboV EVO.
Not everyone is available on every motherboard, but there will always be at least be a few to play with and benefit from.
As with every generation previous, for the next generation of motherboards due soon, ASUS is apparently continuing to evolve this hardware further to better handle the demands of ever more advanced hardware. With Intel largely locking down overclocking on its highly integrated Sandy Bridge platform and AMD’s first APU hardware arriving next year, it will be incredibly interesting to see how ASUS best enhances what’s available.
And now the techy low down on how the DIP works exactly:
ASUS TPU Design Flow