Are all MOBO's (of the same type) Equal?

[Scroobius]

First I had an X79 Extreme 4M (same as the XX PC) back in W8 days. Then I moved to an X79 Extreme 4 which started with W8 but ended up with W10 10074 installed. Why? I hear you ask - but is a story that will have to wait for another day.

Last weekend I decided to reorganise the hardware inside my PC to make way for hot swap tray for the 2.5 inch RAM HDD which will be coming at some time from Peter.

I had a spare old X79Extreme 4M kicking around (an old managers special that I had in the cupboard as a spare). So whilst I was putting the PC back together I decided to see if it worked OK.

When everything was back together and fired up I sat back and put on some music but with some astonishment as the sound quality was very significantly better than either of the previous mobo's. Surely there can't be such a noticeable difference between mobo's can there?

Maybe it is not the mobo there is only one thing different that I can think of. I used the disc (with 10074 on) that I had previously installed on X79Extreme4 (I clean installed the OS) with the X79Extreme4M (managers special) mobo.

It worked absolutely fine with only one "problem" - it sounds fantastic. Just now I am enjoying the best sound ever from this system. Very easy to listen to - very analogue sounding but with the necessary bit and dynamics.

Oh and that was with all settings the same (SFS = 2 which is what I have used since W8 days - but see separate post as I am now using SFS=0.09)

Paul

[PeterSt]

Paul, what to say; I think it is far more easy for us all to think that you have BIOS settings not the same for the two MoBo's. In my experience this is the by far most easy thing to forget and have different a next time. USB is On in the one because you needed that and forgot to shut it off while now with the other it is Off per your default.
And a dozen things more.

Btw maybe a read wrongly, but the Extreme4 and Extreme4-M of course *aren't* the same at all. Topology will be, but the former is the larger with more of everything, consuming more etc. - which is regarded not to be the best (and you being the first to find that out - right ?).

Peter

[Scroobius]

OK I didn't say in the first post but BIOS settings were absolutely definitely the same. Also the sound of the original (first) Extreme4m and the Extreme4 that replaced it were as far as I could tell pretty much the same.

I am not confident enough to say that it is the mobo (and I agree it has to be unlikely) but for my system as it is now using this latest (spare) 4M mobo sounds much better. As I said in the first post the only thing that is different is that I used the OS installed on the 4 mobo with the latest 4M (I did not plan to keep it, it was just to get things going, I  was going to do a fresh install - later). Other than that everything else was the same (trust me exactly the same).

In fact just after I built this latest PC nothing had been set up - so BIOS was "vanilla" with USB2/3 switched on and actually I had just quickly plugged NOS into the onboard USB3 (i.e. NOT the Silverstone) just to see it working. Also the video card was in, keyboard and mouse connected, screen plugged in etc. Even then it sounded significantly better than both previous incarnations (i.e. the very first 4M and the 4) with properly set up BIOS and hardware.

Apart from using the OS from the previous 4 install for sure everything else was the same.

I accept of course that I could have overlooked something but if I have it is something not obvious.

I guess from your answer that you not noticed any difference between the XX PC's.

Paul

[PeterSt]

Hi Paul,

I guess from your answer that you not noticed any difference between the XX PC's.

Possibly that is because I don't listen to them all.

But sorry - I really can't follow;
I hand a small suggestion about BIOS and in between the (too many ?) lines I now read that "this was even without Silverstone".  And that is not a difference ?

Also it is still not clear where you perceived the differences. Between two 4-M 's ?

Regards,
Peter

PS: I am not suggesting that it can't be so (not at all !) - it is only that I can't get what you are comparing.

[Scroobius]

I am not suggesting that it can't be so (not at all !) - it is only that I can't get what you are comparing.

Yea the problem is that I did not set out to compare anything I just switched on with nothing setup and thought wow that sounds good. I then went through getting everything setup properly (like plugging NOS into the Silverstone, setting up BIOS, then making the PC headless etc. and each change (which I did listen to separately) improved the sound further. So the sound from the system now with this latest "spare" 4M is better than the previous "4" and first 4M with all systems setup the same all this with SFS=2. Then loading IMDISK and reducing SFS down to 0.09 improved it even further ( I will try .12 later).

Also I do not think that there was anything wrong with the previous setups certainly I spent much time getting them as good as I could also "Golden Ears" Mani & Nick would have noticed during visits.

I would not have mentioned it but the difference is so significant and I have not clue why.

Paul

[HaraldN]

Different versions of the bios?
What version of the bios do you have?

Harald

[Scroobius]

Hi Harald - that is something I wanted to check but whilst I can easily check the BIOS version on the current 4M board I cannot easily check what it is on the 4 or on the first 4M board.

It is quite possible that the BIOS on the current board is an earlier version because the MOBO was a "Managers Special" and by the appearance of it has been kicking around for a while.

Paul

[Scroobius]

the BIOS version on the 4M board is ver 2.7 2012. There have been a few releases since this version but I do not know what is installed on the other boards.

I shall not be updating!!