Poor current gen Intel motherboard audio options

Capt Doufos · 12 Apr 2021 at 21:51

Hi Everyone!

Is it just me or are more recent intel motherboards lacking in the audio dept? Looking at all the current/previous gen (B560/Z590/Z490 etc) there seem to be a lack of boards with 1) an optical out and 2) Realtek 1220 chipsets.

Everything seems to be the Realtek 897 chip even the really high end boards. My last two Z170 and Z68 boards had decent audio options, what is going on? I use an amplifier and bookshelf speakers via optical so I could really use that and would really rather not have to go back to buying a dedicated soundcard.

Thoughts?

Quartz · 12 Apr 2021 at 21:56

I was looking at B560 boards on a competitor website and the Asus Tuf gaming and the MSI Mag Mortar both have optical outs.

V F · 13 Apr 2021 at 07:53

Even really high end boards?

Gigabyte Z490/Z590 Xtreme uses:

Realtek® ALC1220-VB codec+ESS ES9218P DAC (front panel audio)
Realtek® ALC1220-VB codec+ESS ES9018K2M DAC+TI OPA1622 operational amplifier (rear panel audio)
ESSential USB DAC

Aorus Master has:

ESS SABRE Hi-Fi 9118 DAC
ALC1220-VB Audio

Aorus Ultra has:

Realtek® ALC1220-VB codec
* The back panel line out jack supports DSD audio.
Support for DTS:X® Ultra

They all have Optical.

Capt Doufos · 13 Apr 2021 at 08:10

Maybe my issue is I am looking at mATX. I also found the ASUS Tuf and MSI Mag Mortar but they both use the ALC897 according to reviews I found, although ASUS don't actually specific the codec. This is still not many boards verus previous generations.

Radox-0 · 13 Apr 2021 at 15:43

Dumb question, but if your going to an amp from optical, would there not be a DAC or chip in-between in the chain anyways to once again turn the signal from Digital to Analogue to feed into the Amp. So the quality of the onboard audio would not matter anyways?

Quartz · 13 Apr 2021 at 16:29

What is the difference between the 897 and the 1220?

V F · 13 Apr 2021 at 17:44

Quartz said:
What is the difference between the 897 and the 1220?

Seems to be a lot of improvements due to noise floor and circuitry changes. But it also depends on what each manufacturer adds to their boards. There isn't a one size fits all.

Hey op, after using the ALC 892 for almost a year a then changing to ALC 1220, I can safely say in my opinion that the ALC 1220 completely ***** the ALC 892 in sound quality.

ALC 892 on my previous Z97 AR had good sound quality and a decent amp, but lots of interference, popping and all kinds of noise. This completely destroyed my audio experience.

ALC 1220 not only has a noticiable audio quality increase, but it also has 0% interference or noise while using my Hyper X Cloud core.

The amp is very powerful on my Aorus x370 gaming 5. My headset is rated at 62 ohms and i'm at 50% sound at the second level of "power" on the amp (it has 3 levels). It is very loud in some applications, and no distortion that I found.

I hope that my experience with both helps you. Good luck!

http://www.datasheetcafe.com/alc887...4-bit, 44.1k/48k/96k/192kHz sample rate More

https://www.igorslab.de/en/realtek-...-is-really-different-from-the-larger-alc1220/

EsaT · 13 Apr 2021 at 20:49

Optical bypasses any sound card analog circuitry, so there really isn't any sense to spend money for those.
And if you have only stereo speaker set, any optical output can give out that uncompressed PCM stereo.

Outputting 5.1 through optical needs DD/DTS encoder.
Not because of optical having some hard limitations, but because of SPDIF standard being ancient.

V F said:
But it also depends on what each manufacturer adds to their boards.

Or more precisely you can trust marketroid lead motherboard design teams to screw it up.