Jump to content

looking for help with PC audio

Chemlord11
By Chemlord11
in Audio
 Share
Posted

Hello, I'm looking to build a new PC using an AM4 motherboard but I'm having a bit of trouble finding any information on the audio quality of the on board chips. Is there someone here that can point me toward what to look for or if a dedicated sound card/DAC would be a better option? Last time I was in the market for a PC was 2011 and I didn't pay as much attention to the audio as I would like to this time around. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

As a reference I am locking for audio setup that will get the most of 100-200$ IEMs and prefer a balanced sound.

Link to comment
https://linustechtips.com/topic/778629-looking-for-help-with-pc-audio/
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
1 minute ago, Chemlord11 said:

Hello, I'm looking to build a new PC using an AM4 motherboard but I'm having a bit of trouble finding any information on the audio quality of the on board chips. Is there someone here that can point me toward what to look for or if a dedicated sound card/DAC would be a better option? Last time I was in the market for a PC was 2011 and I didn't pay as much attention to the audio as I would like to this time around. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

As a reference I am locking for audio setup that will get the most of 100-200$ IEMs and prefer a balanced sound.

the audio changes between every motherboard, so you will need to check each motherboards individual product page, but most of them are quite good in quality far as I know

The owner of "too many" computers, called

The Lord of all Toasters (1920X 1080ti 32GB)

The Toasted Controller (i5 4670, R9 380, 24GB)

The Semi Portable Toastie machine (i7 3612QM (was an i3) intel HD 4000 16GB)'

Bread and Butter Pudding (i7 7700HQ, 1050ti, 16GB)

Pinoutbutter Sandwhich (raspberry pi 3 B)

The Portable Slice of Bread (N270, HAHAHA, 2GB)

Muffinator (C2D E6600, Geforce 8400, 6GB, 8X2TB HDD)

Toastbuster (WIP, should be cool)

loaf and let dough (A printer that doesn't print black ink)

The Cheese Toastie (C2D (of some sort), GTX 760, 3GB, win XP gaming machine)

The Toaster (C2D, intel HD, 4GB, 2X1TB NAS)

Matter of Loaf and death (some old shitty AMD laptop)

windybread (4X E5470, intel HD, 32GB ECC) (use coming soon, maybe)

And more, several more

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Most onboard audio solutions these days are fine for most people. I don't see the point of a sound card unless you really want a lot of control over the sound. 

Main System: Phobos

AMD Ryzen 7 2700 (8C/16T), ASRock B450 Steel Legend, 16GB G.SKILL Aegis DDR4 3000MHz, AMD Radeon RX 570 4GB (XFX), 960GB Crucial M500, 2TB Seagate BarraCuda, Windows 10 Pro for Workstations/macOS Catalina

 

Secondary System: York

Intel Core i7-2600 (4C/8T), ASUS P8Z68-V/GEN3, 16GB GEIL Enhance Corsa DDR3 1600MHz, Zotac GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB, 240GB ADATA Ultimate SU650, Windows 10 Pro for Workstations

 

Older File Server: Yet to be named

Intel Pentium 4 HT (1C/2T), Intel D865GBF, 3GB DDR 400MHz, ATI Radeon HD 4650 1GB (HIS), 80GB WD Caviar, 320GB Hitachi Deskstar, Windows XP Pro SP3, Windows Server 2003 R2

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
1 minute ago, Jamiec1130 said:

Most onboard audio solutions these days are fine for most people. I don't see the point of a sound card unless you really want a lot of control over the sound. 

or your upgrading an older system with shit sound. (I have done that) it's their only redeeming factor

The owner of "too many" computers, called

The Lord of all Toasters (1920X 1080ti 32GB)

The Toasted Controller (i5 4670, R9 380, 24GB)

The Semi Portable Toastie machine (i7 3612QM (was an i3) intel HD 4000 16GB)'

Bread and Butter Pudding (i7 7700HQ, 1050ti, 16GB)

Pinoutbutter Sandwhich (raspberry pi 3 B)

The Portable Slice of Bread (N270, HAHAHA, 2GB)

Muffinator (C2D E6600, Geforce 8400, 6GB, 8X2TB HDD)

Toastbuster (WIP, should be cool)

loaf and let dough (A printer that doesn't print black ink)

The Cheese Toastie (C2D (of some sort), GTX 760, 3GB, win XP gaming machine)

The Toaster (C2D, intel HD, 4GB, 2X1TB NAS)

Matter of Loaf and death (some old shitty AMD laptop)

windybread (4X E5470, intel HD, 32GB ECC) (use coming soon, maybe)

And more, several more

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
2 minutes ago, Dutch-stoner said:

Or you drop a screw on your mobo, burning off the onboard sound chips.

is that speaking from experience??? and if yes, how???

The owner of "too many" computers, called

The Lord of all Toasters (1920X 1080ti 32GB)

The Toasted Controller (i5 4670, R9 380, 24GB)

The Semi Portable Toastie machine (i7 3612QM (was an i3) intel HD 4000 16GB)'

Bread and Butter Pudding (i7 7700HQ, 1050ti, 16GB)

Pinoutbutter Sandwhich (raspberry pi 3 B)

The Portable Slice of Bread (N270, HAHAHA, 2GB)

Muffinator (C2D E6600, Geforce 8400, 6GB, 8X2TB HDD)

Toastbuster (WIP, should be cool)

loaf and let dough (A printer that doesn't print black ink)

The Cheese Toastie (C2D (of some sort), GTX 760, 3GB, win XP gaming machine)

The Toaster (C2D, intel HD, 4GB, 2X1TB NAS)

Matter of Loaf and death (some old shitty AMD laptop)

windybread (4X E5470, intel HD, 32GB ECC) (use coming soon, maybe)

And more, several more

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
1 minute ago, Chemlord11 said:

If your speaking from experience that must have been a rather unfortunate accident.....

 

1 minute ago, grimreeper132 said:

is that speaking from experience??? and if yes, how???

Yes, experiance. Desktop on it's side, trying to put add some screws on the GPU while pc was running. (me does not like downtime) Managed to turn onboard sound off in bios, and added a soundcard. That mobo is still being used daily, 9 years later.

ASUS M2n SLI Deluxe.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
Just now, Dutch-stoner said:

 

Yes, experiance. Desktop on it's side, trying to put add some screws on the GPU while pc was running. (me does not like downtime) Managed to turn onboard sound off in bios, and added a soundcard. That mobo is still being used daily, 9 years later.

ASUS M2n SLI Deluxe.

well done. yea I agree down times bad, but there is some cases, like that were it's acceptable. That being said sound cards are cheapish now, so that wouldn't be a massive peoblem

The owner of "too many" computers, called

The Lord of all Toasters (1920X 1080ti 32GB)

The Toasted Controller (i5 4670, R9 380, 24GB)

The Semi Portable Toastie machine (i7 3612QM (was an i3) intel HD 4000 16GB)'

Bread and Butter Pudding (i7 7700HQ, 1050ti, 16GB)

Pinoutbutter Sandwhich (raspberry pi 3 B)

The Portable Slice of Bread (N270, HAHAHA, 2GB)

Muffinator (C2D E6600, Geforce 8400, 6GB, 8X2TB HDD)

Toastbuster (WIP, should be cool)

loaf and let dough (A printer that doesn't print black ink)

The Cheese Toastie (C2D (of some sort), GTX 760, 3GB, win XP gaming machine)

The Toaster (C2D, intel HD, 4GB, 2X1TB NAS)

Matter of Loaf and death (some old shitty AMD laptop)

windybread (4X E5470, intel HD, 32GB ECC) (use coming soon, maybe)

And more, several more

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
2 minutes ago, grimreeper132 said:

well done. yea I agree down times bad, but there is some cases, like that were it's acceptable. That being said sound cards are cheapish now, so that wouldn't be a massive peoblem

And you have people like my neighbor who gives me a giant box full of old sound cards. 

Main System: Phobos

AMD Ryzen 7 2700 (8C/16T), ASRock B450 Steel Legend, 16GB G.SKILL Aegis DDR4 3000MHz, AMD Radeon RX 570 4GB (XFX), 960GB Crucial M500, 2TB Seagate BarraCuda, Windows 10 Pro for Workstations/macOS Catalina

 

Secondary System: York

Intel Core i7-2600 (4C/8T), ASUS P8Z68-V/GEN3, 16GB GEIL Enhance Corsa DDR3 1600MHz, Zotac GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB, 240GB ADATA Ultimate SU650, Windows 10 Pro for Workstations

 

Older File Server: Yet to be named

Intel Pentium 4 HT (1C/2T), Intel D865GBF, 3GB DDR 400MHz, ATI Radeon HD 4650 1GB (HIS), 80GB WD Caviar, 320GB Hitachi Deskstar, Windows XP Pro SP3, Windows Server 2003 R2

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
1 minute ago, Jamiec1130 said:

And you have people like my neighbor who gives me a giant box full of old sound cards. 

yea, I know a guy like that. just instead of sound cards I got 16 old PCS and servers off him, a shit tonne of drives and some other shit as well

The owner of "too many" computers, called

The Lord of all Toasters (1920X 1080ti 32GB)

The Toasted Controller (i5 4670, R9 380, 24GB)

The Semi Portable Toastie machine (i7 3612QM (was an i3) intel HD 4000 16GB)'

Bread and Butter Pudding (i7 7700HQ, 1050ti, 16GB)

Pinoutbutter Sandwhich (raspberry pi 3 B)

The Portable Slice of Bread (N270, HAHAHA, 2GB)

Muffinator (C2D E6600, Geforce 8400, 6GB, 8X2TB HDD)

Toastbuster (WIP, should be cool)

loaf and let dough (A printer that doesn't print black ink)

The Cheese Toastie (C2D (of some sort), GTX 760, 3GB, win XP gaming machine)

The Toaster (C2D, intel HD, 4GB, 2X1TB NAS)

Matter of Loaf and death (some old shitty AMD laptop)

windybread (4X E5470, intel HD, 32GB ECC) (use coming soon, maybe)

And more, several more

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author
17 minutes ago, grimreeper132 said:

the audio changes between every motherboard, so you will need to check each motherboards individual product page, but most of them are quite good in quality far as I know

The only reason I decided to ask was I am looking to look into the audiophile world and figured different chips would yield better/different sound. Seeing as that world is tight nit I figured a tech forum like this one would be able to help me better understand what I would need to look for.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
Just now, Chemlord11 said:

The only reason I decided to ask was I am looking to look into the audiophile world and figured different chips would yield better/different sound. Seeing as that world is tight nit I figured a tech forum like this one would be able to help me better understand what I would need to look for.

I personally don't know the difference between each one, just that far as I know most are so similar in quality that it doesn't matter. But if you want the best quality get one of those external box thingys which are used to improve the quality etc. for your music

The owner of "too many" computers, called

The Lord of all Toasters (1920X 1080ti 32GB)

The Toasted Controller (i5 4670, R9 380, 24GB)

The Semi Portable Toastie machine (i7 3612QM (was an i3) intel HD 4000 16GB)'

Bread and Butter Pudding (i7 7700HQ, 1050ti, 16GB)

Pinoutbutter Sandwhich (raspberry pi 3 B)

The Portable Slice of Bread (N270, HAHAHA, 2GB)

Muffinator (C2D E6600, Geforce 8400, 6GB, 8X2TB HDD)

Toastbuster (WIP, should be cool)

loaf and let dough (A printer that doesn't print black ink)

The Cheese Toastie (C2D (of some sort), GTX 760, 3GB, win XP gaming machine)

The Toaster (C2D, intel HD, 4GB, 2X1TB NAS)

Matter of Loaf and death (some old shitty AMD laptop)

windybread (4X E5470, intel HD, 32GB ECC) (use coming soon, maybe)

And more, several more

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author
1 minute ago, grimreeper132 said:

I personally don't know the difference between each one, just that far as I know most are so similar in quality that it doesn't matter. But if you want the best quality get one of those external box thingys which are used to improve the quality etc. for your music

so you would recommend me focus on a DAC then?

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
Just now, Chemlord11 said:

so you would recommend me focus on a DAC then?

yea pretty much. far as I know they are better for sound than a motherboard is. 

The owner of "too many" computers, called

The Lord of all Toasters (1920X 1080ti 32GB)

The Toasted Controller (i5 4670, R9 380, 24GB)

The Semi Portable Toastie machine (i7 3612QM (was an i3) intel HD 4000 16GB)'

Bread and Butter Pudding (i7 7700HQ, 1050ti, 16GB)

Pinoutbutter Sandwhich (raspberry pi 3 B)

The Portable Slice of Bread (N270, HAHAHA, 2GB)

Muffinator (C2D E6600, Geforce 8400, 6GB, 8X2TB HDD)

Toastbuster (WIP, should be cool)

loaf and let dough (A printer that doesn't print black ink)

The Cheese Toastie (C2D (of some sort), GTX 760, 3GB, win XP gaming machine)

The Toaster (C2D, intel HD, 4GB, 2X1TB NAS)

Matter of Loaf and death (some old shitty AMD laptop)

windybread (4X E5470, intel HD, 32GB ECC) (use coming soon, maybe)

And more, several more

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

IEM's are generally very sensitive to output impedance and noise. So it might pay off to get an external DAC. But try before you buy.

Pascal Undervolting topic, get more out of your card with less power!

Why high refreshrate monitors look better even without Freesync/G-sync in one image.
Stutters, framedrops, "lag". How to provide detailed information with your "bottleneck" question, as well as a few solutions.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing Audio

×