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.

[acg]

From the info Peter has corresponded to me whilst building my xx pc, I don't think that reducing the active cores will be a beneficial experience.  But consider this: a 6 core like the i7-3930K can hyperthread to 12 whereas the 8 core Xeon will hyperthread to 16 giving it much more parallel processing power, lower TDP (measured typical consumption 172W vs 56w) and therefore much less heat to dissipate.  The little Xeon also has 22MB of L2+L3 cache compared to 13.5MB on the i7 which is something from my understanding that is beneficial to XX. 

What I don't know is whether XX can take advantage of all this extra grunt right now.  Perhaps Peter can chime in if he glances at the forum during his holiday.

Anthony   

[Nick]

Anthony hi,

Got it, your Xenon has 8 physical cores, 16 threads and 22mb of cache, it must have been too late for me last night when I read your first post. That's interesting, Peter would know if the extra threads might help XX directly or indirectly by servicing background OS calls  better, but i'm guessing the larger cache might be useful regardless of the effect of the number of threads.

Nick

[boleary]

Hey Nick, I've had the ASRock MB in for a few days and the sound is getting better and better. It certainly now sounds as good as the best I was ever able to achieve with the ASUS board, though I really need to give it more time, and maybe even a switch back to the ASUS at some point, to really have a sense of how much better it may be. One thing that took me some time to adjust to is the difference in the strength of the audio signal: I'm playng tracks about 3 to 4.5 db less than I was playing them with the ASUS. This difference in volume level takes me back to volume levels I used with my old Dell which also had a micro ATX MB.

Unfortunately, I've had very little time for critical listening. Am hoping that will change by next weekend. Will post again with further impressions as things change. One other thing, I am underclocking the processor by 50% and running the memory at 800 mhz along with as many other BIOS tweaks that I could find which were identical to the tweaks I had made with the ASUS.

One sign that "special" things are happening in my listening room was given yesterday: I asked my wife to give the system a quick listen. After a minute or two she turned to me and said the sound was so smooth and life like it felt like an LSD trip! Now I didn't know her back in the 1970's, but i take this as high praise from one who does NOT share my passion for this hobby!

[Nick]

Brian hi,

That is some praise for the sound of your system if your better half is an audiophobe. Never mind drugs, play some music 

I'm pleased the new board is working well. I also had to drop 3db or so from listening levels which I took to be a good thing. It seems like the noise floor is lower with much higher dynamics which brings the perceived loudness back up to asus board levels.

I'm in Chamonix on hols right now so this is from memory. When setting up the asock I found the main sweet spot parameters were the cpu ratio setting memory speed, memory timing and surprisingly memory and cpu voltage.

I have not totally finished playing but it would be good if you could try this and let me know what you think.

Cpu ratio at 24 (a change of +-1 here collapses or sharpens the sound)

Cpu clock frequency at 103

Take the first 5 memory timming settings off auto and and use the speeds  listed on the dimms (this will be timming for the max rated speed of the dimms but since we are setting memory frequency to 800mhz it is slower timings than with auto set. In my case I think the settings are 11, 11, 11, 11 and 30).

EDIT I should also have said that I find running only 2 (not four) memory dimms is important. You can just take two out the mobo sorts it all out automatically.

Then most importantly up the memory voltage by 15% (here that means 1.65 v)

Last put cpu voltage up by 10 to 15 %.

For me this lot gives a significant sweet spot. As I say its still a work in progress. The board took a week or two to run in but worth taking ten mins to try these settings they do really help my system.

Cheers,

Nick.

[boleary]

Thanks Nick. Will give those settings a try as time permits. As the ASRock X79 Extreme 4M is the one Peter is using in his custom PC's, am very much looking forward to a forum thread about Bios settings. Peter? 

[boleary]

After listening to the ASRock Extreme 4-M for the last 3 weeks, it seemed like it was time to post final impressions. So, yesterday morning I started this post,  but as I wrote I began to feel less and less confidant in my impressions. Weren't there times that the ASUS sounded every bit as good as the ASRock? Aren't there folks here, other than Mani and Nick, who went the ASUS route based on our collective use of this very expensive board? What if it's just placebo-- drinking the Nick cool-aide--and now, by "preferring" the ASRock, I might influence others to foolishly spend more money. So I stopped writing and spent the better part of the day swapping out MB's, CPU and thermal paste.....

Boy am I glad I did it. With real confidence I can say that the ASRock is a very significant step up in SQ. To quote Nick's first post in this thread, "there was confusion, digital hash and hardness" with the ASUS, and, regarding the ASROCK, " 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%." I'd bet that the reduction of noise traces is certainly relevant. Again, thanks Nick. Mani, I think you may want to dust off that Zalman case.

One possible issue with the ASROCK that may be of concern is heat if you are going fan-less. When I first installed the ASROCK I had the case turned upside down so I could mount the seasonic on the bottom where it could properly vent. Doing so caused the MB to run about ten degrees (Celsius) hotter, around 50 degrees, than the ASUS board had ever run. Concerned about that I used an external fan with the PC case left open to keep everything cool. After some googling, I turned the case right side up and removed the PS, setting it up on some rubber/cork isoblocks right next to the PC (this is a great free tweak, talk about articulation and clarity!) Anyway, set right side up, the MB temp dropped by 6 to 10 degrees; however the ASROCK BIOS gives three temp readings: CPU, MB, and SB. I don't know what the SB stands for, but turning the case right side up didn't help "SB" to run cooler; with no fan it has remained between 48 and 50. I can't find anything about SB temps and am hoping someone here can advise? I emailed ASROCK support two weeks ago and never received a reply. My CPU runs between 38 and 40 and the MB between 40 and 43 with no fans (water cooled cpu). Is a 50 degree SB temp too hot?

I think it was Paul who recently said that given all of his recent changes, it will take several months to be able to fine tune his system. I feel the same way, but at least I know which MB will be listed on EBay this week. Nick, I feel like I can now begin to apply your BIOS tweaks. Will post results as time permits.
 
 

[manisandher]

Hey Brian, thanks for taking the time out to look at this so thoroughly. I've earmarked a day next week to swap the Asus out for the ASRock. Will let you know what I think once I've had a chance to do this.

Just a quick question. Which USB port are you using for the NOS1? On Friday I did a bit of playing around and found that the ASUS mobo USB3 port was much better than the USB3 PCIe card I'd been using. Using a PS/2 connection for both the keyboard and mouse, just a single USB3 for the NOS1, and disabling all other USB2/3 ports gave me a really nice sound.

Cheers, Mani.

[AlainGr]

Hi Brian,

I think that SB stands for Southbridge (or south bridge). If so, you can see more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southbridge_%28computing%29

Regards,

Alain

[PeterSt]

South Bridge ...

[PeterSt]

Beaten again bij Alain ...

And notice that this small fan is for that (can also be given a "tune" in the BIOS and Xtreme Tuning Facility).

Peter

[AlainGr]

Well you could swap the 2 posts

[Nick]

Brian hi,

There is always a desire to share experiences but I'm always worried by doing so it may encouage others may invest and the outcome is not so nice. So I'm really pleased and more than a little relieved that you have found the ASRock board to be so good. After a month or so of using the board I'm still really enjoying it as well 

Regarding settings, I don't understand quite why but when I came back of holiday I spent more time on the BIOS settings and there are slightly different now, so I'm not sure that those posted may give the best possible results. The settings that do seem to help are clock ratio at 24, memory frequency at 800mhz and memory voltage up a little to 1.6 to 1.65v. I'll post more if I get to a definite set of values.

Anyway really please again to hear that it's gone so well.


Mani hi,

Just a quick question. Which USB port are you using for the NOS1? On Friday I did a bit of playing around and found that the ASUS mobo USB3 port was much better than the USB3 PCIe card I'd been using. Using a PS/2 connection for both the keyboard and mouse, just a single USB3 for the NOS1, and disabling all other USB2/3 ports gave me a really nice sound.

On my ASUS I tried mobo and PCIe USB ports and the settings that you have above re ps/2 connections and USB turned off. The settings also helped to give the best sound from the ASUS board here as well. Even with these settings applied to the ASUS the ASRock was I very big step forwards at least in my system. It should be fun to swap out the board this week and take a listen. Fingers crossed here that you get a positive result.

Regards,

Nick.

[Scroobius]

Hey Nick,

I guess we are going to have to compare our PC's again at some time. Or is that a bad idea? - really we have to hope they sound similar now and that your previous mobo was a rogue type.

Paul

[Nick]

I guess we are going to have to compare our PC's again at some time. Or is that a bad idea? - really we have to hope they sound similar now and that your previous mobo was a rogue type.

Paul hi,

Comparing the PCs again would be fun. I still believe your X58 Asus setup to be a real sweet spot setup. I am really pleased with sound quality here at last though and I hope that our PCs will be much more comparable than they were when we tried this with my Asus X79 board !


Best,

Nick.

[manisandher]

Nick, Brian, (or anyone else who may have an opinion),

I'm ready to go ahead and replace my Asus mobo with the ASRock mobo. A quick question beforehand though:

Did you find that you could use the same HDD/Win8 install or did you create a new HDD/Win8 install for the new mobo. The former would be great, the latter a right royal PITA.

Now just let me know...

Cheers, Mani.

[boleary]

Yes, that's what I initially did, just plugged the ASUS HD with OS into the ASROCK and everything worked fine. Because I needed a backup drive, I subsequently reinstalled the OS to a new drive and copied all music to it as well. It works cause the chipsets are identical.

[manisandher]

Hi Brian, thanks for jumping in so quickly. It's getting late here, but I'm tempted to swap the mobos out right now, knowing that there'll be no software installing to be done.

Cheers, Mani.

[manisandher]

An update...

I did go ahead and swap the Asus mobo out for the ASRock mobo last week. Everything went smoothly up until I tried booting up and got nothing happening. My first thought was that I had buggered up the CPU or something. But then I realised that I wasn't even getting the BIOS screen appearing. Looking at the mobo, I saw an error code being displayed on the LEDs. Consulting the manual it seemed that I had a memory error. Looking deeper I realised that the ASRock mobo doesn't accept the 4x DDR3-2133 memory cards I had transferred directly from the Asus mobo. Fortunately, the music PC in my office had 4x DDR3-2400 memory cards and was happy with the DDR3-2133 cards, so I just swapped them around. After this, everything worked fine. Phew!

I didn't do any tweaking other than disabling all the USB2 ports  and one of the two USB3 ports (first in Win8 and then in the BIOS). I'm not using a USB3 PCIe card, and there remains just one SATAIII HDD connected to the mobo. The keyboard and mouse are both connected via PS/2. The NOS1 is connected via a single run of regular 5m USB2 cable (no separate data and power lines or anything fancy, though my 'USB grounding scheme' remains). And the sound...?

Well, I agree with everything that Nick and Brian say 100%. This is no placebo. This mobo really is better than the Asus, it's as simple as that.

Furthermore, in my 'USB cables... again' thread, I mentioned that I could 'hear' my mouse and HDD, etc through my horns if I used a regular USB cable (with both data and power lines) between the PC and NOS1. Well this has totally gone - proof that this mobo really is quieter/better than the Asus?

Thanks for all the encouragement to get off my backside and do this guys.

Mani.
 

[Nick]

Mani hi,

I'm pleased it has worked out so well. im guessing there must be a lot pf delighted XXPC owners using this board too. It been interesting that we have all had the same experience, mobos really do matter it seems.

Good that you had spare memory Dimms to try. Just worth mentioning that here it seems to be better for SQ to only fit 2 Dimms not 4. Its possible just to take two out, the mobo sorts out what is fitted automatically.

It would be great to get together when you get back from your business trip. I would realy value you opinion on the sound of my NOS1 and it would be nice to take a look and listen to at your amps and Swings.

Best,

Nick

[boleary]

Glad to hear it's worked out for you too, Mani. The only Bios tweaks I've done, to good effect, was reducing the CPU ratio and memory frequency by half.

[Edit] I have from the beginning had all usb2 and 3 options disabled, but just today I enabled one usb3 MB connection and plugged my generic usb 3 cable into that mb connection. I also  switched the HD/OS/Music connection from SATA III to SATA II. Both tweaks seemed to improve SQ. I tried taking the Startech Renesis pcie card out but, when I did,  s's became terribly sharp. I put the card back in and that problem went away, though nothing is connected to either Startech usb connection. Don't know if the card causes more or less noise. For me, eliminating all noise generally means turning the amp off and reading a book.   

[pedal]

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.

Hi guys!
Inspired by your findings, I have decided to purchase this Mobo too. I will go for the non-M version.
Any other advices? -Which processors should I buy for it?

Today I am running all software on Flash memory. Should I put the XX on a regular HardDisk? -Which one to purchase, then?

Any input is appreciated!

[boleary]

Pedal, I think the cpu mostly used by XX'ers is the 3930,3.2 Ghz, as in my signature. However, I believe Mani uses the 3960 and Anthony-"acg"- the Xeon 8-core 70w 1.8Ghz which is a lot cheaper. So there doesn't seem to be one "recommended" cpu. I think the same may be true of HD's. I use a 3tb Seagate barricuda where I have both XX and music files, but that's a bit out of the norm I think.

Good luck with your upgrade, I believe you will have good results!

[PeterSt]

Anthony-"acg"- the Xeon 8-core 70w 1.8Ghz which is a lot cheaper.

Not so. Besides I don't think this 1.8GHz can be obtained officially anymore, this comes from is a "China" source. Could be good anyway, but it was not new and *then* much cheaper, yes.

Peter

[boleary]

Sorry about that bad info. A little knowledge can be worse than none at all!

[PeterSt]

No worries. I operate not hindered by knowledge.
Haha.

[acg]

Correct about the Xeon cpu Peter.  It is sold as an "Engineering Sample" but may well be a clone of some type, I really don't know.  It is cheap, low powered, and seems to run cool and work very well.  The real bonus is the low power:  if we all start to mess with linear supplies down the track then this psu uses a fraction of the current that the big i7-3930K uses so the likelihood of powering it directly by linear psu is much easier and much cheaper.

Anthony

[PeterSt]

Maybe not continue this "power usage" in this topic. It is very much correct what you said, but at least I will be confused where to be since we're talking about the same in that other topic. Ok ?

Peter

[acg]

No problemo!