Anyone is surprised that a lowly $9 Apple dongle beats this thing?
While Apple does have best performing ARM core's implementation on mobile in terms of efficiency it's actually behind reference ARM design but bigger problem for Apple is that that lv of performance is not sustainable (thermal throttling limit).Apple already has by far the best CPU in the business, in terms of performance per watt. Making a audio dongle with far less technical complexity it's a child's play to them.
Can you hear a difference in a volume matched double blind test between this motherboard and an apple dongle? No.I'm not sure.
Is it really a good enough level dac? Looks like apple dongle is way better than this.
You can get GPU noise even with an external and independently powered DAC:
https://archimago.blogspot.com/2013/02/measurement-asus-xonar-essence-one.html
https://www.everythingusb.com/asus-xonar-essence-one-21293.htmlIt does not look like Xonar had external power though, it was still powered by computer PS.
I see. My bad I thought it was one of those external cards that go into 3.5 bay of computer cases where CD usually goes.
Apple already has by far the best CPU in the business, in terms of performance per watt. Making a audio dongle with far less technical complexity it's a child's play to them.
Can you hear a difference in a volume matched double blind test between this motherboard and an apple dongle? No.
Can you hear a difference in a volume matched double blind test between this motherboard and a Topping D90? No.
So it is good enough.
Thank you for measuring a modern gaming motherboard and showing why people really should invest in a amplifier for their headphones. I keep trying to tell people on reddit to stop telling everyone their motherboards are just fine and constantly get told I am horribly wrong...between the very poor amount of power on tap and the super high output impedance its just not gonna be suitable for almost any headphones on the market.
There is a very good article which tested 3 other motherboards and found very similar results (https://www.igorslab.de/en/big-real...tors-fans-temperatures-and-the-onboard-sound/ )
None of them were suitable to drive most headphones in all situations. They get loud enough if you are listening to loud content but thats about it, and output impedeance being so high impacts the FR of most headphones.
One big factor the previously mentioned article found as well is that the voltage outputs could drop at times under high cpu loads, like for instance playing games which is not ideal. Due to that possible voltage drop it can be worth investing in a external dac if you are playing games.
There is a very good article which tested 3 other motherboards and found very similar results (https://www.igorslab.de/en/big-real...tors-fans-temperatures-and-the-onboard-sound/ )
That's pretty interesting, I didn't know that onboard audio pushes out more power to the front panel/case connections than the rear I/O:
can we get a test to see if there's any difference in power and output impedance through front jacks? I'm assuming amirm did the measurements with the rear jacks on the motherboard itself...
That's what I measured. the "DAC" tests were using the rear connector and "headphone" tests used the front (top in my case). As I showed, the front one does output nearly twice as high a voltage than the rear.can we get a test to see if there's any difference in power and output impedance through front jacks?