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Showing 1 of 7817 conversations about:
Burtonium
5
Aug 1, 2017
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My gaming motherboard has a DAC built in, does that mean I don't have to buy one?
Cokeman
1971
Aug 1, 2017
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BurtoniumThat’s subjective. DACs range in price from $50-$50,000+ and they all sound sequentially better. You may not need one, but a good $100-$150 DAC will sound better than onboard.
PixelFruitloops
136
Aug 1, 2017
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BurtoniumDepends on the mobo. Lots of mobos have decent onboard sound, however an external DAC would likely be better. Also, if your headphones have high impedance (ohms), you'd likely be better off with an external AMP or a DAC/AMP combo unit. I don't know how well you know audio stuff, so forgive me if you aleady know the terms below:
DAC: Digital Analogue Converter. This is your 'source' for the sound. It processes the digital files or streams into analogue signals your headphones can use to output sound to your ears. Bad DACs can make your sound staticy, thin, short, harsh, etc. .. For most consumers with random $10 earbuds this is fine, as the cheapie buds don't really allow much detail to be shown. But for those with higher end headphones, these issues become more apparent.
AMP: Amplifier. This increases the power supplied to your headphones, as well as the type of power. The 6XX headphones have an impedance of 300ohms. Most phones, laptops, and mobos won't be able to power these headphones to the fullest unless otherwise stated. AMPs, ideally, should not effect the sound if they're doing their job right. However, we don't live in a perfect world and sound is impacted slightly. In terms of the type of power, I don't know a lot a about this part other than some power supplies introduce noise into the system in the form of static or distortion.
AMP/DAC's: Just a combo of a DAC and AMP into one lil box. Convenient.
Burtonium
5
Aug 1, 2017
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PixelFruitloopsAs for what the mobo advertises they said I'd be good for up to 600 ohms. Also the DAC is 120dB SNR DAC whatever that means. Is that decent?
PixelFruitloops
136
Aug 1, 2017
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BurtoniumCould you give me the mobo part number? It'd be easier for me to look into it that way. It seems like you should be OK with your onboard sound, just keep in mind you may have distortion, hissing, or just plain weird things happen with your onboard sound. One of the main reasons I started getting into this money pit is because whenever I moved my mouse, my headphones (HD 598's) would hiss very slightly. Not super annoying at first... but once you hear it, it never goes away lol.
Burtonium
5
Aug 1, 2017
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PixelFruitloopsI know what you mean I just kind of dealt with it in the past. The model is the Taichi motherboard z270.
Cokeman
1971
Aug 1, 2017
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BurtoniumTaichi? I am big into PC building and I have never heard of that brand?
PixelFruitloops
136
Aug 1, 2017
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BurtoniumYour mobo uses the Realtek ALC1220 codec, which is pretty meh from what people say online. However, on paper it looks pretty good. IMHO you should wait and try it out. If it's subpar you can always get a DAC/AMP after the fact.
Burtonium
5
Aug 1, 2017
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CokemanIt's a motherboard from Asrock. My build had a black/white theme for it so it fit nicely. I had never heard of that brand before either.
Cokeman
1971
Aug 1, 2017
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BurtoniumOh it’s ASRock, sorry I hate ASRock and don’t pay attention to their stuff at all, that’s why I hadn’t heard of it. Yeah all that sounds good on paper, but a stand-alone DAC and AMP would be better.
tbrakef
21
Aug 1, 2017
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PixelFruitloopsSo I want to piggyback on this. I'm in the same boat with my mobo. They claim they can push high impedance headphones on my ASUS ROG STRIX B350. I'm skeptical that they would put a legit DAC/AMP on a Mobo. Seems like just a feature checkbox. Also, how much of a difference is there, I don't have any headphones currently that could highlight the difference so...
Cokeman
1971
Aug 1, 2017
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BurtoniumThey are the lowest quality stuff, and are not know for their quality, reliability or customer suppor. If you go on PC Part Picker and sort motherboard by cheapest to most expensive ASRock is always cheapest if you ignore rebates and there is a reason for that.
Cokeman
1971
Aug 1, 2017
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tbrakefThe difference really depends on the headphones, easy to drive stuff you won’t really notice a difference with an AMP, but will notice a massive difference on hard to drive headphones. With DACs most people will probably not notice a difference (unless you are using like a laptop or phone with a bad DAC) when you first get it, but I challenge you to do this. But a DAC and use it, you probably wont hear any differenc, use it for a few days and then stop using it, you will definitely notice then. It’s one of those things that doesn’t seem that much better till you don’t have it.
PixelFruitloops
136
Aug 1, 2017
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tbrakefFor me, it's not so much the difference so much as it is difficult to go back after experiencing something better. Onboard sounds... harsh to me now. I have the GA-Z170MX-Gaming 5 which supposedly totes a bunch of fancy sound stuff... But I still have the stupid issue with hissing when I move my mouse. IMO external DACs/AMPs will always trump onboard. The quality gain is small when going from "high end" onboard, but once you fix those tiny nuances that annoy you... you won't want to go back.
Jackula
1743
Aug 2, 2017
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PixelFruitloopsI've got the same board! The USB DAC-UP on this mobo was one of the main selling points for me. Alternatively you can mod your USB cable and take out the power wire, this trick will almost always make your external DAC sound better, but obviously won't work if your DAC operates on USB power :P
choseonghoon87
0
Aug 2, 2017
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BurtoniumEvery mobo comes with dac's built in, that's how they produce sound we hear from digital signal 0's and 1's . Dac chips on mobo has been improved significantly over the past years, but I wouldn't be able to enjoy much off of for this unit, given that typical mobo dac chips will not be able to drive 300 ohm headphones. I even feel that my M50x sounds much better with schiit stacks than Asus mobo dac chips .
PixelFruitloops
136
Aug 2, 2017
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JackulaI hook up my Soundblaster G5 to the DAC-UP ports for gaming use, I can't say it helps or hurts anything in my experience. Unrelated to sound stuff, have you had any issues using the software overclocking options? I tried the one click overclock and it made my PC super slow. Manually overclocking works just fine.
Jackula
1743
Aug 2, 2017
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PixelFruitloopsThat's odd, all I could think of is a possible power cap, automatic overclocks are usually really power inefficient, and depending on your power supply perhaps it's struggling to supply constant stable power to all your components which can appear slow and unstable? Manual overclocks are always better, it's what I do too.
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