PC motherboard upgrade

[Nick]

During a visit to Pauls last week end we placed my Music PC in Pauls system as part of the on-going process Pauls has been helping me with to track down problems in the performance of my system. We were both very supprised by the significant gap in sound quality between the two PCs.

Pauls PC
Exceptionally good reproduction overall, coherent, smooth with a dynamic presentation.

My PC
Sound Quality (SQ) good but far from right, there was confusion, digital hash and hardness compaired to Pauls PC particularly in the mid and upper mid frequencies.

We did the same test of both PCs in my system recently with similar results so our conclusion was that the PCs generate a significantly different sound quality level and that the rest of our systems were unlikely to be the cause of the difference.

I considered continuing to build a clone of Pauls PC (having already fitted the same Seasonic PSU and video card that Paul has fitted), howver I was keen to keep the newer Socket  LGA 2011 CPU and the memory I had bought because of their cost. So earlier this week I replaced my Asus P9X97WS mother board (£330) with an AsRock X79 Extreme4-M motherboard (£150). All other components of the PC hardware and software remained the same.

I know this is a well worn statement but the change in sound is fundamental  EVERYTHING has changed, even more so than when a Seasonic supply was fitted. It may or may not be relevant to the change in sound that the new motherboard has reduced the amplitude of noise traces taken at the output of my DAC by about 70%.

Motherboard selection for music servicer matters one hell of a lot I guess we know that but without the ability to compare different PCs is all a bit hit and miss choosing components. After fitting the new AsRock X79 Extreme4-M board I noticed that it is the same board that I think Peter uses/supplies in the the Phasure Music PC so I now have some sense of how good these PCs must be sounding for the people who have bought them.

A great result for a very modest outlay 

Regards,
Nick.

[manisandher]

Thanks for the info Nick.

I have the z77 version of this mobo in my office PC, and like the sound that I'm getting there. So I've gone ahead and ordered the x79 version to replace the Asus P9X97WS currently in my main music PC.

Will report back thoughts on changes in SQ between the two x79 mobos once I've had a chance to install it (hopefully next week sometime).

Mani.

[PeterSt]

Yes Nick, same MoBo. And now you have that anyway, use PS2 connections for mouse and keyboard, not USB.

Peter

[Nick]

Thanks for the info Nick.

I have the z77 version of this mobo in my office PC, and like the sound that I'm getting there. So I've gone ahead and ordered the x79 version to replace the Asus P9X97WS currently in my main music PC.

Will report back thoughts on changes in SQ between the two x79 mobos once I've had a chance to install it (hopefully next week sometime).

Mani.

Mani,

Your not hanging about  , I dont think that my experiance is was down to a duff Asus P9X79WS board. I had to return the first board I had becuase of a fualt and it was replaced with a new example, both the Asus Mobos sounded the same however. I have my fingers crossed that you have a similar experiance when your AsRock board turns up.

Regards,

Nick.

[Nick]

Yes Nick, same MoBo. And now you have that anyway, use PS2 connections for mouse and keyboard, not USB.

Peter

Thanks Peter, PS2 connections are in use  I'm using the XX settings from your signature and a 50% under clock via CPU ratio setting. Wow the XXPCs must sound good !

Nick.

[manisandher]

I have my fingers crossed that you have a similar experiance when your AsRock board turns up.

Oh, I didn't buy the ASRock because I think it'll necessarily sound better than my current Asus. If it does, that's great of course. No, it's because I have a spare Zalmann TNN-300 case sitting around that I'd (maybe) like to employ as my main music PC. And it only takes micro-ATX mobos and not ATX mobos such as the Asus.

Mani.

[Nick]

I have my fingers crossed that you have a similar experiance when your AsRock board turns up.

Oh, I didn't buy the ASRock because I think it'll necessarily sound better than my current Asus. If it does, that's great of course. No, it's because I have a spare Zalmann TNN-300 case sitting around that I'd (maybe) like to employ as my main music PC. And it only takes micro-ATX mobos and not ATX mobos such as the Asus.

Mani.

I understand, IIRC those Zalman TNN-300 cases are rather special no wonder you would like to get it back in use, but fingers still crossed for SQ all the same

Nick

[boleary]

I think I'll wait till Mani reports on his experience with the ASRock X79 before I take the plunge on a new MB. Am pretty sure my continued use of the APEXI capacitor card, which really helps the sound here, is because of the problems you've described, Nick, with the ASUS board. Am wondering though, when you were using the ASUS MB, did you install the MB drivers from the disc that came with your old ASUS MB, and did you do the same with your new MB? Also, if you did not install the ASUS MB drivers, did you reinstall the OS when you changed MB's? Hope this makes sense.

Brian

[Nick]

I think I'll wait till Mani reports on his experience with the ASRock X79 before I take the plunge on a new MB. Am pretty sure my continued use of the APEXI capacitor card, which really helps the sound here, is because of the problems you've described, Nick, with the ASUS board. Am wondering though, when you were using the ASUS MB, did you install the MB drivers from the disc that came with your old ASUS MB, and did you do the same with your new MB? Also, if you did not install the ASUS MB drivers, did you reinstall the OS when you changed MB's? Hope this makes sense.

Brian

Brian hi,

With Windows 8 I have been using the standard Windows 8 software install with both the ASUS and ASRock Mobos (not using the MB driver CD for either of the boards).

Whilst I was using Windows 7 I did try running the ASUS MB with and without the MB drivers on the ASUS CD. There was not much difference with possibly not loading the MB drivers sounding slightly better IIRC.

I may try the ASRock with the MB drivers on the supplied CD just to see what happens 

There is certainly no immediate need to fit the APEXI capacitor card with the ASRock but again i'll try it just in case.

Nick.

[boleary]

Thanks Nick, I've never installed the ASUS MB drivers and just used the generic windows drivers. Because of this, I'm wondering if I can just install my current OS hard drive if I swap MB's or would I need to reinstall the OS should I swap MB's?

[Nick]

Thanks Nick, I've never installed the ASUS MB drivers and just used the generic windows drivers. Because of this, I'm wondering if I can just install my current OS hard drive if I swap MB's or would I need to reinstall the OS should I swap MB's?

Brian hi,

My Windows 8 Asus install did boot on the ASRock board after some disk spinning time, I guess it may have been swopping a few drivers.

In the end though I did an OS upgrade to windows 8 on my windows 7 HDD since I cannot see me using windows 7 again. At least this gave a known OS condition for the ASRock board.

Nick.

[boleary]

Thanks Nick. So, I got impatient, considered who it was that said the ASRock sounds better than the ASUS, and ordered the ASRock MB about an hour ago. 

[Nick]

Thanks Nick. So, I got impatient, considered who it was that said the ASRock sounds better than the ASUS, and ordered the ASRock MB about an hour ago. 

Brian hi,

Haha i wondered how long you would last, I really don't think you will regret it  It turns out the board is a tweakers delight. It sounded good the moment it went in compared to the ASUS board but after 3 days of setting it up the sound is exceeding expectations. I'll PM you some settings to try 

Peter mentioned in another post setting up a thread for XXPC tweaks. I think that would be great idea.

Cheers,

Nick.

[acg]

Hi Nick.  Your observations regarding the Asrock vs Asus board are interesting.  Like me, you seem to be a serial tweaker but I am brand new to XX and the NOS1 so am just getting started in this.

I built my own XX pc based on Peters recipe but one thing that I changed was the cpu: I went for a second hand lower power 8 core Xeon from ebay instead of the high wattage 6 core i7 recommended by Peter.  I have no idea if it makes any difference, but it is cheap, and I like the idea of 8 cores, 70w TDP (although it has been tested at 54w) and permanent underclocking with 1.8Ghz.

It was a risk ordering a second hand processor from China on Ebay but it turned up on time, slotted straight in and I have been playing music ever since.  I just thought I would mention it just in case you were curious about the Xeon or 8 core stuff.  I for one would certainly like to know if I have limited my system by using it, but I am not going to spend AU$700 for the i7-3930K chip right now.

Cheers,

Anthony

[Nick]

Anthony hi,

Im guessing that the core (thread) count is not too important ( 8 v 12 ) I may try limiting the active cores here to see what happens. It seems that underlocking is a good way to go anyway so a slower processor speed may actually help 

I'v been playing with a lot of BIOS settings trying stuff out since getting the mobo. Pulling out a couple RAM DIMMs (two fitted now), slowing down RAM frequency and timings and lowering the CPU ratio is producing interesting results. Its looking like there is quite a sweet spot to be had with these settings.

Regards,

Nick.