Motherboard These are the features that every mATX board should have

[Tilltech]

Just look at those audio specs! It's like having a dedicated high-tier sound card.

So many USB 3.0/3.1/10Gbps ports!

Dual-band WiFi!

4 DIMM slots with up to 4000MHz memory!

Nothing like this even remotely exists for the AM4 platform.
Frankly, this is making me reconsider buying Ryzen. I think I'll wait for Coffee Lake. Hopefully, it will be compatible with this chipset. So sad, I don't even like Intel.

 

[grumpyrobin]

You are comparing 7 year old architecture to a brand new one. Of course the new one is gonna be rubbish for support.
But if you want that stuff then yeah, Coffee Lake, or newer am4 motherboards plus zen 2.

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

This isn't even close to a high tier sound card, sorry. It is more of a gimmick that all manufacturers are throwing at us.

Want quality, go external DAC. Computer environment is too full of electrical noise (fans, switching mode power supply, etc.)

You can get nice shielded cards that uses PCIe to USB controller and are powered from a molex connector, with adequate filtering (instead of the noisy PCIe bus power). It then exposes an USB connector to connect to an external DAC, free of noise

The next level are PCIe to I2S cards, if you have an I2S DAC. They support bitperfect and provides the lowest jitter.

 

[3lfk1ng]

Most of those are just good marketing.

- The 1220 mentioned in the audio specs means that the underlying sound card is the Realtek ALC1220 that is offered on the more affordable Gigabyte/ASRock B350/x370 ITX motherboards. Unfortunately, we still don't have a single worthy x370 mATX motherboard (the Biostar doesn't count: it's just a budget board that happens to be using the enthusiast chipset.) or even a single AM4 mATX board that offers ALC1220/Intel Lan.

- For the motherboards that offer wifi, Dual-band Wifi is standard (again, that's just marketing- like advertising 'PH balanced' Shampoo)

- 4000MHz memory makes little to no sense (especially for the cost) as it makes very little to no difference in performance (source).

- 10Gbps ports are also just marketing as general consumers will see no benefit to it from current ISPs. The only time it could be considered viable is if you're running an extreme multimedia business where sending massive amounts of data (we're talking terabytes here) is the norm. Also, unless your house is wired with CAT6A and you're using a $700 switch to manage that vast amounts of internal network traffic, it's just a gimmick.

- That motherboard has (2 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports) + (4 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports), the exact same as the $114 Gigabyte ITX motherboard.

Hope this helps.

 

[Tilltech]

This isn't even close to a high tier sound card, sorry. It is more of a gimmick that all manufacturers are throwing at us.

Want quality, go external DAC. Computer environment is too full of electrical noise (fans, switching mode power supply, etc.)

People keep saying this, but how do you know this?

It is obviously shielded, and it obviously detects and adjusts for different impedance, it obviously has a DAC and a pre-amp, while others don't.

MOD BREAK: don't personally attack people

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

Spent countless time reading about audio, including electronic related to audioamp, DAC and preamps, loudspeaker and driver's physics. I have a huge collection of data sheets from different DAC, opamps, buffers from the 80's up to the current ones, books about solid state or Valve amplifiers design.

Started computing when PC had no audio. Earned quite a bunch of dedicated audio card, since there was no onboard. Had both end user and professional grade ones, even with swappable OPAMPS.

Been reading real reviews, not just gaming site testing onboard chipsets. Do you know the effect of filtering chocks orientations on the audio signal ?

Listened to the difference between onboard, dedicated and DAC with headphones in the several hundreds euros price tag.

Audio is my passion, it is way over a hobby thing. Gathered, read, learnt and experimented extensively on this subject for years.

Obviously all chipsets has DAC .... Else you couldn't have any sound since it is an analog signal.

Obviously they all have a preamp stage else you'd have no gain, most of the time it is just an all in one chipsets that does DAC, preamp, volume control etc..

You do not need figure, but I can send you plenty. The best judge are you ears, marketing bullshit will never fool trained ears.

Also, audio is like wine, you don't have to spend a fortune. All you need is to forget about the marketing. Trust your senses.

Those 1220 chipsets are nice for daily use and days better than chipsets from the past .... But they are just no match to something even semi serious like an mAudio or a Lynx audio card.

If all you want is decent sound then they are good and inexpensive. But I can't let you say they are top tier

 

[Phuncz]

The S1220 audio solution is a good solution for on-board, although I can't tell the difference with the S1150 from my Impact VII board. I do know that it doesn't detect the impedance correctly/consistently on my Prime X370-Pro board and it also increases impedance for my speakers, not just headphones.

The sound from the on-board audio and affordable "bookshelf" speakers is already good enough for me.
I can't justify getting an expensive DAC with amplifier and speakers to match, since I'm not always in a quiet enough environment, my hearing is probably damaged enough from the countless music events and the music I listen to is often streamed and thus lacking in quality anyway.

 

[grumpyrobin]

You know, it's times like these I'm glad I have less than stellar hearing. I don't need to worry so much about this stuff.

 

[IntoxicatedPuma]

I'm in the same boat but it's for seeing. 4K monitors have no power here!

 

[grumpyrobin]

I like high resolution for2 things and 2 things only. Reading text and VR ( but it needs wider focus as well)

 

[jØrd]

Where is your data to make such statements?

Wheres yours?