Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Motherboard Audio Review

[amirm]

I wonder how S/PDIF does from this motherboard, compared to say using a topping d10. Is this something that can be tested?

Most good DACs are immune to vagaries of S/PDIF and Toslink so should work well. Indeed for a while I had noise issues with my DX3 Pro DAC with this machine and used the Toslink to good effect.

 

[CJ Miller]

Awesome, because this is how the company markets it lol.

View attachment 61934

That's the exact port I use on my x470 motherboard. May never use the onboard audio since Amir spoiled it for me already. Lol

 

[Tks]

I know, it is nuts that one has to spend 3 times the cost of a PS4 Pro or XBox One X for a graphics card that runs things acceptably at 4K.
But what really annoys me is that the video card manufacturers just do not seem to give a crap about coil whine that their cards produce or the interference that they dump down the common ground. At least PS4 Pro uses a 2-prong cord which eliminates the latter problem. However, most PS4 Pro consoles, including my own, have a very pronounced coil whine emanating from the unit itself that is easily audible in menus where the frame rate is uncapped (for some reason). I had to put mine into a ventilated closet just so that the coil whine and fan noise would not bother me. With PCs, you can control the fan noise easily, you can cap that frame rates which helps the coil whine, but electric interference via common ground is still an issue.

Thank goodness for IEM's and headphones. People could potentially make music using some of the sounds these devices emanate..

Oh wait

I listen to something like this..

 

[Tks]

My measurement software uses a full core at least and this was running during the test. So this is not a lightly loaded system. I can try to run a benchmark and see what happens. I am not a gamer so have no games to run .

We gonna have to get you to talk with Sony and their upcoming aspirations for 3D audio in the PS5. We'll make a gamer out of you yet. (I would love for you to see what sort of advancements have been made in the industry, not just technologically, but cinematically, and story-wise). A game like Red Dead Redemption 2 is a bigger blockbuster of story-telling than any movie I've seen in recent memory.

 

[bboris77]

We gonna have to get you to talk with Sony and their upcoming aspirations for 3D audio in the PS5. We'll make a gamer out of you yet. (I would love for you to see what sort of advancements have been made in the industry, not just technologically, but cinematically, and story-wise). A game like Red Dead Redemption 2 is a bigger blockbuster of story-telling than any movie I've seen in recent memory.

I am also very interested in what Sony is planning to do with their PS5 audio. I just really hope that they do not pull any proprietary BS that would require a purchase of their own wireless headphones to take advantage of this 3D technology. I would love to be able to use my own DAC with the PS5 without having to resort to some el cheapo HDMI extractor.

 

[Tks]

I am also very interested in what Sony is planning to do with their PS5 audio. I just really hope that they do not pull any proprietary BS that would require a purchase of their own wireless headphones to take advantage of this 3D technology. I would love to be able to use my own DAC with the PS5 without having to resort to some el cheapo HDMI extractor.

Doesn't seem like they would pull such nonsense, that'd be worse than apple axing the headphone jack and making their lightening connector the only interface possible.

Likewise with that DAC hope. PS4 still sports SPDIF Optical. I see no sanity in getting rid of it.

As for the 3D audio tech they're going to be slowly developing as time goes on. Unfortunately, I doubt they'll offer it outside of anything other than their own titles/system output. Perhaps it will be a system-wide DSP ordeal, or at worst exclusively within titles themselves.

 

[bboris77]

Doesn't seem like they would pull such nonsense, that'd be worse than apple axing the headphone jack and making their lightening connector the only interface possible.

Likewise with that DAC hope. PS4 still sports SPDIF Optical. I see no sanity in getting rid of it.

As for the 3D audio tech they're going to be slowly developing as time goes on. Unfortunately, I doubt they'll offer it outside of anything other than their own titles/system output. Perhaps it will be a system-wide DSP ordeal, or at worst exclusively within titles themselves.

I agree a 100%. I love my SPDIF optical. But there are all these arguments on how it's outdated, not enough bandwidth to carry 3D uncompressed positional audio and so on. I still think it is vastly superior to HDMI audio, especially considering the fact that no DACs accept HDMI audio or have integrated HDMI repeaters like AVRs do. For my money, you should not be getting rid of a perfectly functional interface until you replace it with something that offers the same functionality at the same or improved sound fidelity. They could always offer audio over USB as a compromise, but Toslink offers galvanic isolation which is great.

 

[PierreV]

My current main machine uses the X570 (AMD socket 4) version of this board. According to the marketing, the ALC autosenses the impedance of the connected headphones and adapts to it. It should be configurable manually from the control panel (not in front of that machine right now). Am wondering what it "autosenses" when connected for measurements. When I use a gaming headset it is the ATH-ADG1x (48 Ohms spec) and I don't notice much difference, if any when I switch to my HD-600 (300 Ohms). Will try with earbuds tonight.

 

[Tks]

I agree a 100%. I love my SPDIF optical. But there are all these arguments on how it's outdated, not enough bandwidth to carry 3D uncompressed positional audio and so on. I still think it is vastly superior to HDMI audio, especially considering the fact that no DACs accept HDMI audio or have integrated HDMI repeaters like AVRs do. For my money, you should not be getting rid of a perfectly functional interface until you replace it with something that offers the same functionality at the same or improved sound fidelity. They could always offer audio over USB as a compromise, but Toslink offers galvanic isolation which is great.

Yeah, I wished that TOSLINK wasn't abandoned. The people who came up with such a standard are geniuses in my view.

As far as the bandwidth claims. Not a damn clue (though I wouldn't mind in the slightest even if it was compressed, and seeing as how ray traced audio can still be transmitted with the same formats currently, I see no reason why it couldn't over Toslink to be honest). As for HDMI, I have no clue either on how it, nor the similarly shaped the I2S standard even works. Seems complex for no real reason aside from unifying everything under one cable (in the case of HDMI).

My current main machine uses the X570 (AMD socket 4) version of this board. According to the marketing, the ALC autosenses the impedance of the connected headphones and adapts to it. It should be configurable manually from the control panel (not in front of that machine right now). Am wondering what it "autosenses" when connected for measurements. When I use a gaming headset it is the ATH-ADG1x (48 Ohms spec) and I don't notice much difference, if any when I switch to my HD-600 (300 Ohms). Will try with earbuds tonight.

My mobo does the same (as long as the driver is installed from what I can tell). Has three levels I believer last I recall from when I had the driver installed. The driver also let me set the "mode" and volume would be drastically different (naturally). Id be surprised if no difference comes from using IEM's to HD600's. Though I assume you have the relevant driver installed.

 

[PierreV]

My mobo does the same (as long as the driver is installed from what I can tell). Has three levels I believer last I recall from when I had the driver installed. The driver also let me set the "mode" and volume would be drastically different (naturally). Id be surprised if no difference comes from using IEM's to HD600's. Though I assume you have the relevant driver installed.

So, plugging stuff in/out

HD600 (300 Ohms, 97dBSPL/mW spec) -> auto switches to power lvl 3 in my control panel
ATH-ADG1x (48 Ohms spec, 99 dB/mW) -> auto switches to power lvl 2

those two subjectively decently level matched.

Westone UM2 in-ear (28 Ohms spec, 119 dB/mW) -> auto switches to power lvl 1 and... is insanely too loud before I adjust the volume (understandable given the sensitivity).

That being said, I would subjectively say that bass is much worse than with the full size headsers and also than on the portable devices I used to pair with the UM2 (again subjectively checked with a phone and a fiio dap).

Along the way, I found those articles interesting

https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/14017381-headphone-impedance-and-sensitivity

https://www.headphonesty.com/2019/04/headphone-impedance-demystified/

 

[Xyrium]

These are highly software-driven. If you aren't setting the output power on them, you may default to the lowest output. The ESS DAC sections on most of these boards is usually tied to the front panel output header of the MB as well.

Edit: Ignore everything I wrote. Just two posts above it's already been discussed. LOL, sorry about that....well, not everything, but the output level.

Amir, would be nice to see how things change with the output levels adjusted in software.

 

[Lolito]

would be great to have several ipod classics and a few macbooks tested.

 

[amirm]

Amir, would be nice to see how things change with the output levels adjusted in software.

I am hesitant to install their crapware given that this is a mission critical PC and needs to stay stable.

 

[Paperdragons]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the audio subsystem of my Gigabyte Z390 Z390 Aorus Master "gaming" motherboard. It was kindly built into my system by member @mkawa and is my everyday workhorse that runs all the measurements you see. It costs US $290 including Prime shipping from Amazon.

Besides being a high-end PC motherboard, it advertises appetizing audio specifications:

View attachment 61918

An ESS ES9118 DAC chip is used which has an advertised SINAD of 112 dB. If achieved, this would rival and beat many budget desktop DACs.

DAC Audio Measurements
There is multi-channel analog output plus a dedicated headphone output. The former is on the back and latter on the case. Let's start with line out in the back:

View attachment 61919

Output is limited to 1.1 volts which is way short of nominal 2 volts a DAC is supposed to produce. Distortion is rather high and dominates SINAD (figure of merit of distortion+noise) to the tune of 91 dB. This is well short of the ES 9118 specifications and lands the Z390 motherboard in "OK domain:

View attachment 61920

That said, for PC motherboard this is not bad. My last PC motherboard, the Gigabyte B8 only reached 83 dB. And a Dell XPS 8930 retailing for US $1,000 finished dead last in above chart at just 43 dB!

Dynamic range is actually quite good especially in one channel:

View attachment 61921

You have plenty of headroom to not add noise to any CD/16-bit format.

32-tone test track resembling "music" did not do any better than what we have already seen:

View attachment 61922

Intermodulation distortion+noise shows the same:
View attachment 61923

Filter response is the first "correct" one I have seen in a long time:
View attachment 61924

It nicely truncates anything past half the sampling rate at 22.05 kHz. Most DACs go out to 24 kHz which allows some aliasing. Attenuation of -70 dB is not a lot though and we see that it causes some problems later.

Jitter is not clean but not as bad as people dread on a motherboard DAC:

View attachment 61925

Distortion+noise with 90 kHz bandwidth shows problems relative to frequency:

View attachment 61926

This test is never complete however without diagnosing what is contributing to it. That is, whether we have that high of noise and distortion in audible band or something else is amiss. So let's look at the spectrum:

View attachment 61927

We see the problem to far right. That spike is there because the DAC reconstruction filter did not attenuate enough which allows our 1 kHz tone to alias there. Fortunately it is not audible so more of a measurement issue than performance.

I kept the best news for last:
View attachment 61928

This is stunningly accurate linearity which even expensive DACs struggle with at times. The Z390 ES9118 DAC is well implemented to produce the correct output voltage down to a whopping -120 dB/20 bits. Can't ask for much more!

Headphone Output Measurements
Let's start with our dashboard of 2 volts out:

View attachment 61929

We see some loss of performance relative to line out but we are getting nearly double the output so this is not so bad.

Performance is actually respectable but sadly not much power:

View attachment 61931

Switching to 33 ohm load, sharply reduces output power:
View attachment 61930

When this happens, usually it means the output impedance is too high and boy is it high:

View attachment 61932

It is one of the worsts I have ever measured in any audio product! Consequences are listed on the graph. I suggest staying with high impedance headphones (at least 300 ohm).

Conclusions
Considering how bad PC implementations of audio can get, the Gigabyte Z390 Aorus actually does well. Grading on a curve, it is one of the best audio subsystems I have seen in a PC. In absolute terms though, a $99 DAC will run circles around it but audible difference may be fleeting. In other words, what is there is "good enough."
What is not good enough is the headphone output with its dismally high output impedance and inadequate output power especially with low impedance headphones. There are headphone dongles that do better than this output!

Overall, I take the rather clean multi-channel line out and give a passing grade to Gigabyte Z390 Aorus audio subsystem. Get yourself a headphone amp and you may be good to go without having to get a DAC to go with it.

-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

I was watching this youtuber saying he has quit his regular job and aims to do a video almost every day. I have been doing a review everyday and don't recall getting enough money to quite my job. Or wait. I already quite my job for other reasons. Darn. Until I think of another reason to beg for money, why don't you donate anyway using : https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

I'm starting to feel bad for the poor WOO audio amp. Don't know if it will ever be dethroned. Wouldn't have expected even an onboard dac to have lower impedance

 

[Xyrium]

I am hesitant to install their crapware given that this is a mission critical PC and needs to stay stable.

Totally understand!

 

[trl]

Output is limited to 1.1 volts which is way short of nominal 2 volts a DAC is supposed to produce. Distortion is rather high and dominates SINAD (figure of merit of distortion+noise) to the tune of 91 dB.

The way it looks seems that the volume is too high. Wondering if lowering the output volume to from 1.1.V RMS to 1V RMS will lower the harmonics.
Thank you!

 

[amirm]

The way it looks seems that the volume is too high. Wondering if lowering the output volume to from 1.1.V RMS to 1V RMS will lower the harmonics.
Thank you!

Oh, I tested that but forgot to post! Here you go:

 

[Palladium]

I had a MSI Z370M Gaming AC board with ALC1150, and IIRC Realtek Audio Manager provides selecting amplifier output levels on supported chipsets which can be set to "Ultimate" or some other named equivalent for 2V RMS (I think?). This feature is completely disabled if you are using the generic Windows audio driver.

Something like this, might wanna test it out.

 

[PierreV]

Some more tests on my Aorus X570 Master (same audio components but AMD architecture)
Now, an essential caveat: I consider myself to be a complete idiot in those audio tests which means I may have done something completely stupid, overlooked something, ran the test improperly etc... Any info, pointer or criticism will be welcome.

I tested the loopback front headphones out to front mic input.

In a relatively loaded PC 4900x, GPUs, 64 GB RAM, lots of cables running around, I seem to be noise limited.
The six tests in the middle are tests with different amp output level selected, smart amp disabled and other control panel tweaks.
Somewhat surprisingly, stressing 8 of my 12 cores (with a CPU stress test) or stressing the GPUs doesn't change anything.

I'll try to test the back panels line outs later.

Did my best to match all options possible to 96kHz 24-bit and disabled all audio enhancements I could find, may still have missed something.

 

[chauct]

Anyone is surprised that a lowly $9 Apple dongle beats this thing?