How many PCI-E slots are you using and what's in them?

MatteRB26 · 17 Sep 2023 at 16:55

hdpcgamer said:
Mobo audio has come a long way but I use a Creative Sound Blaster G3 USB Dac and I get fantastic Dolby Atmos audio for movies and games.

Yeah people asked every time I said I used a sound card... My X470 audio was just so flat, the Xonar added so much more range and clarity.

Now I have an Asus B550 which uses a slightly newer chip I believe - I did a comparison for a few days before taking the sound card out. I took it out when I thought "audio's been pretty good on the sound card, let me.try the onboard" ... I'd been using the onboard that whole time :cry:

just proved it wasn't needed anymore!

hdpcgamer · 17 Sep 2023 at 17:05

MatteRB26 said:
Yeah people asked every time I said I used a sound card... My X470 audio was just so flat, the Xonar added so much more range and clarity.

Now I have an Asus B550 which uses a slightly newer chip I believe - I did a comparison for a few days before taking the sound card out. I took it out when I thought "audio's been pretty good on the sound card, let me.try the onboard" ... I'd been using the onboard that whole time just proved it wasn't needed anymore!

I used to use a Xonar U3 but stopped because it doesn't work on Windows 11. I game and watch movies using headphones therefore I use the Creative G3 because it can output 7.1 via the line out and then I use HeSuVi to enable Dolby Atmos for fantastic 3D audio

Avathar77 · 17 Sep 2023 at 17:06

Just the GPU. Which makes me think of going ITX.

tamzzy · 17 Sep 2023 at 17:10

have matx and itx rigs, unsurprisingly...only pcie slot used is for the gpu

MatteRB26 · 17 Sep 2023 at 17:12

hdpcgamer said:
I used to use a Xonar U3 but stopped because it doesn't work on Windows 11. I game and watch movies using headphones therefore I use the Creative G3 because it can output 7.1 via the line out and then I use HeSuVi to enable Dolby Atmos for fantastic 3D audio

I had issues with 11 too! I had a Xonar AE (or DG?) 7.1 and as soon as I went to 11 it broke... for months. It was only the last few months the problem got "solved". I couldn't use both headset/mic and speakers both in the sound card

hdpcgamer · 17 Sep 2023 at 17:24

MatteRB26 said:
I had issues with 11 too! I had a Xonar AE (or DG?) 7.1 and as soon as I went to 11 it broke... for months. It was only the last few months the problem got "solved". I couldn't use both headset/mic and speakers both in the sound card

When I realized that the Xonar didn't work for Windows 11 I searched for an alternative and the only one I could find was the G3 and that works with Windows 11 natively.

For anyone running an ITX build and needs a decent USB soundcard for Windows 11, try the Creative G3 - its less than £30 and also works on the Switch, PS4/5 and Mac

Dg834man · 17 Sep 2023 at 18:10

Just a GPU now have used sound cards in the past, onboard and cheap usb headsets have come a long way in recent years.

smilertoo · 17 Sep 2023 at 18:12

Gpu and an Essence STX sound card.

FredFlint · 17 Sep 2023 at 18:39

GPU + Sound Blaster Z.

pastymuncher · 17 Sep 2023 at 18:44

GPU in the primary slot connected by a pci-e 4.0 riser and a Soundblaster Z in a 1x slot also connected by a riser as the card doesn't fit in the motherboard because what I have done with the GPU.

FBi7 · 17 Sep 2023 at 20:16

GPU and a 5 x USB3 port card.

Jamin280672 · 17 Sep 2023 at 20:32

Just my GPU, vertically mounted using as riser cable, im using a Soundblaster X3 external DAC as I cant get anything else in the other slots because of the GPU.

ooStevo · 18 Sep 2023 at 04:10

MatteRB26 said:
Nowadays just a GPU. I used to have a sound card as my previous Z77 and X470 audio sucked. However I now have a B550 with (pretty much) the same chips as the Xonar had and is slightly better.

The B550 boards are as good as dedicated sound cards(or in the ballpark)? I've bought an MSI Tomahawk B550 which I'll be putting into my new build in a day or two. Is the sound really that good? If so that's great.

Jamin280672 · 18 Sep 2023 at 04:56

ooStevo said:
The B550 boards are as good as dedicated sound cards(or in the ballpark)? I've bought an MSI Tomahawk B550 which I'll be putting into my new build in a day or two. Is the sound really that good? If so that's great.

I tried the onboard sound for 20 mins, tried to configure it to sound acceptable, trust me, it wasnt even close to my X3, in fact when it came to playing music from my PC via optical cable to a Sony STR-DN1080 Av Receiver with floor standing TCL speakers, onboard sucked big time, I disabled it and set my X3 back up, the difference is night and day, never looked at it again, if you are just using it for gaming and watching youtube vids etc then I guess it would be OK, but anything else like music and movies, its carp !!!

ooStevo · 18 Sep 2023 at 06:43

Jamin280672 said:
I tried the onboard sound for 20 mins, tried to configure it to sound acceptable, trust me, it wasnt even close to my X3, in fact when it came to playing music from my PC via optical cable to a Sony STR-DN1080 Av Receiver with floor standing TCL speakers, onboard sucked big time, I disabled it and set my X3 back up, the difference is night and day, never looked at it again, if you are just using it for gaming and watching youtube vids etc then I guess it would be OK, but anything else like music and movies, its carp !!!

Well if you look at my current sig,I guess it might be a smidge better than what I have now

MatteRB26 · 18 Sep 2023 at 06:53

ooStevo said:
The B550 boards are as good as dedicated sound cards(or in the ballpark)? I've bought an MSI Tomahawk B550 which I'll be putting into my new build in a day or two. Is the sound really that good? If so that's great.

Not sure on the B550 Tomahawk, but my X470 was an MSI Gaming Plus and the audio was very lacklustre. My current B550 is an Asus and they tend to use similar chips as their sound cards on their boards, so it kinda makes sense the audio is as good

gtl_racer · 18 Sep 2023 at 10:43

GPU, low profile M.2 adapter(only pcie2 x4), sound card Xonar D2X. No room for anything else..

Werewolf · 18 Sep 2023 at 18:48

IIRC I've got 4 in use at the moment.

GFX
SATA (I think, it's been a long time since i looked)
2x USB3 cards.

The USB 3 cards are because I tend to run a bunch of devices and it seems that despite USB being sold originally as "up to 127 devices" Windows starts to get upset when you run more than about 6-10 per USB root hub especially if any of them are USB drives.

Grumbledook · 18 Sep 2023 at 18:55

I had the USB root hub issue when trying to run multiple webcams. Could only support one per root hub.

Werewolf · 18 Sep 2023 at 19:13

Yup
I've heard that since, it's something that when I first encountered it there was basically nothing I could find online in regards to it, I worked it out by basically realising that I had to remove one device to get another working.
I tend to have something like 4 external USB drives, a couple of normal printers (and a label printer), a scanner, 2 keyboards (full size and smaller wireless), a couple of mice for different uses, trackball, game controller, gaming keypad, a couple of USB memory sticks and a bluetooth adaptor.

It was really annoying trying to work out why devices randomly wouldn't work when plugged in, right up until I registered that it wasn't actually random.

I think since the likes of streaming the webcam issue has been quite heavily highlighted.