Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Motherboard Audio Review

[abdo123]

Yes, the USB soundcard is USB powered (just a common Soundblaster SB1140). I just wanted to know if the noise is just inside the PC with ALC1220, or in USB as well.

PSU is Seasonic Ultra Titanium, rated at 850 watts and I made sure that highest power draw is around 500 wats at most, close to highest efficiency, between 40-60% of rated power.

So... i guess to get a clean reading i have to use completely different computer or device as an input.

to get a clean reading you need to use toslink out to the DAC (no electric circuit) and the DAC needs to be powered independently from the PC (external or internal PSU).

is the level of noise audible to you ?

 

[Offler]

to get a clean reading you need to use toslink out to the DAC (no electric circuit) and the DAC needs to be powered independently from the PC (external or internal PSU).

is the level of noise audible to you ?

PC to Amp is Toslink and it has its own PSU.

The noise was most likely measured on the PC side input, regardless it was ALC1220 DAC (located on PC mainboard) or USB SB1140.

The noise is not audible when using Toslink... But its definitely audible when using AUX.

 

[Offler]

Some update.
Because the noise was clearly in both ALC1220 on PCI-E and on SB1140 on USB of the desktop PC, this time I used for measuring my notebook. That removed the GPU generated noise from the Input, and i could measure if the noise is solely on amplifier headphone out.

This time i used first Witcher 3, then stress test and then no load. When the game is not in focus, it mute all sounds, but its still generating new frames. I confirmed that by tools inside PC which measure GPU utilization and by total system power consumption (around 400 watts).

Tests are done from headphone output on NAD d3020v2, input is Soundblaster SB1140 (mono), 50percent of system sound, while amp is roughly at 70%.

Giving the poor measuring tool, its clear how much is the AUX output sound distorted if there is GPU load, and that its adding about 20-30db of noise. Also whole GPU is covered with thick copper cooler, so the noise probably got to through the PCI-E or power supply.

Aux01 shows measurement while game is in background, and AUX is used.
optical01 is showing same over toslink.

Aux02 and Opt02 were measured during GPU stress test.

Aux03 and Opt03 are control when there was no GPU activity.

Also after these tests i suspect that ALC1220 uses some sort of bass boost.

 

[SebaMK82]

Hola, muchas cosas aquí, gracias. He tenido este Z390 Aorus Master durante un par de años. Escucho música en alta calidad y juego FPS principalmente. En mi experiencia debo decir que la diferencia de calidad usando el puerto trasero (Sabre) es NOTORIA. Mi AD500X es relativamente fácil de mover, pero tiene mucha potencia y parece que también movería fácilmente a algunos más hambrientos. No hay distorsión ni ruido de piso audible. En mi caso tengo dudas ya que quiero actualizar y no sé si con un Fiio K3 o un Ifi Zen Dac vería alguna diferencia. También utilizo Presonus Eris 3.5 autoamplificados y se sienten mucho mejor usando el puerto trasero. ¡¡¡Saludos!!!

 

[AluminiumEar]

ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Hero Review

Intel's 1700 socket is ready to party! ASUS brings the motherboard, so we are all set. The ROG Maximus Z690 Hero sports an assortment of new features along with PCIe Gen5 and DDR5 support, five M.2 sockets, Thunderbolt 4, and a powerful VRM design with 90 A power stages. ASUS has really thought...

www.techpowerup.com

Review some High-end motherboard like this please. Could be interesting

 

[Doodski]

ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Hero Review

Intel's 1700 socket is ready to party! ASUS brings the motherboard, so we are all set. The ROG Maximus Z690 Hero sports an assortment of new features along with PCIe Gen5 and DDR5 support, five M.2 sockets, Thunderbolt 4, and a powerful VRM design with 90 A power stages. ASUS has really thought...

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Review some High-end motherboard like this please. Could be interesting
View attachment 163730

Is it my imagination or have the prices of motherboards substantially increased over the past couple of years? @amirm will test a PC but I doubt he is going buy one to test it. Somebody needs to send one in for the test.

 

[Offler]

Is it my imagination or have the prices of motherboards substantially increased over the past couple of years? @amirm will test a PC but I doubt he is going buy one to test it. Somebody needs to send one in for the test.

It was in past months - the chip shortage, so prices of all components went up...

My GPU was 800 euro, plus 200 cooling and I thought it was way too expensive. Few months ago, on a secondary market it price raised to 1600...

I am really not going to build new PC anytime soon.

 

[Gradius]

$600 for a MB (ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Hero) ? No thanks.

 

[AudioManNewb]

I'm currently using the Aorus Elite X570, which is a step down with the ALC1200 vs ALC1220-VB (and they don't specify the DAC chip). I know I could get better with an external DAC, but by leaving it at 70% volume in windows and using my Atom amp connected to the rear out, I'm satisfied enough to not be actively looking to spend more money.

To be fair, I could probably get decent sound with the headphone out anyway since I'm using planar headphones (Sundara) so the output impedance is far less of a problem (though they like a bit more peak power available).

That is what I am doing currently same setup but I have no idea if I should in the drivers of Realtek be running the smart amp on level 3 or just leaving it connected to the Front Speaker out(rear) without the amp on. Would that be considered double amping? Line Out only gets 1V smart amp or amp up gets 2V.

Edited: For clarity

 

[Jimster480]

That is what I am doing currently but I have no idea if I should in the drivers of Realtek be running the smart amp on level 3 or just leaving it connected to the Front Speaker out(rear) wihtout the amp on.

If the motherboard has an Amp you should be using it especially to drive planars.

 

[AudioManNewb]

If the motherboard has an Amp you should be using it especially to drive planars.

What I meant was I have the same setup they have Atom Amp to Rear Line out. I edited it above for clarity.

 

[Jimster480]

What I meant was I have the same setup they have Atom Amp to Rear Line out. I edited it above for clarity.

Ah okay, yea not sure about the motherboard audio quality. I remember being in your shoes years ago and when I upgraded to a standalone DAC everything was night and day even on my $30 headphones.

 

[Berwhale]

That is what I am doing currently same setup but I have no idea if I should in the drivers of Realtek be running the smart amp on level 3 or just leaving it connected to the Front Speaker out(rear) without the amp on. Would that be considered double amping? Line Out only gets 1V smart amp or amp up gets 2V.

Edited: For clarity

You probably want the 2V output to ensure that you're out of the low range of the volume on the Atom (where you might hear channel imbalance due to analogue potentiometer).

 

[AudioManNewb]

Ill turn there smart amp on put it to its highest level. Until somebody tells me otherwise.

 

[AnalogSteph]

You probably want the 2V output to ensure that you're out of the low range of the volume on the Atom (where you might hear channel imbalance due to analogue potentiometer).

That makes no sense... if you want a higher volume pot setting on the amp you'd want lower source level rather than higher. Anyway, among the low gain setting on the Atom and output level control on the onboard audio it should be quite easy to stay out of the troublesome zone even with sensitive IEMs.

Ill turn there smart amp on put it to its highest level. Until somebody tells me otherwise.

Sounds like a plan. Just make sure there aren't any effects being turned on along the way without your knowledge.

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www.techpowerup.com

Review some High-end motherboard like this please. Could be interesting
View attachment 163730

Looks similar to what my ALC1200 gets on the rear panel (Asus TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WIFI), so I guess ALC4082 is the USB successor for that.

(Front panel I/O is a fair bit worse.)

I have some more measurements and stuff in this thread.

 

[Berwhale]

That makes no sense...

You're right, I don't know what I was drinking thinking!

 

[Cisco150]

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.

There are 3 settings in the Realtek HD Audio Manager for the front port did you set it to number 3 Ultimate in on the r281 driver