OnBoard Audio Feedback

[saaya]

Bit-tech.net compared our Sonar XiFi to the P6T and Gigabyte onboard audio and it was rated very good and excellent in the two frequency ranges they tested, while the others were rated very good and very good. So there is barely any difference, but there IS a difference and the Sonar XiFi and other integrated sound options sure have come a long way from rough distorted clicking noise with barely any base :D

but many of you want the best of the best or already invested in a very nice soundcard some time ago and just dont want to give it up for onboard sound.
So how important is our onboard sound to you, should we continue to spend a lot of efforts on it or should we treat it as a basic feature, or maybe even remove it to reduce costs?

Thanks for voting! Every vote gets you +5 karma points :D

[INFRNL]

:confused:What happened to my post. Anyways. I use the sonar card and think its a great option. This is a much better option than true on-board audio; so if someone wants to use something different they can and not have to worry about audio ports in the I/O panel!

[saaya]

well editing polls isnt possible apparently, and i forgot 2 options to i created a new poll and deleted the old one.
when i checked there were no replies, sorry... your reply must have been between me checking and then deleting the thread :D

yeah, it gives us more space for the audio solution, more space for the main pcb, and it gives us more space in the IO panel to add usb ports :)

[Serpentarius]

i wonder .. when will it be the day where sound cards is overclockable?

[saaya]

i wonder .. when will it be the day where sound cards is overclockable?i think audio solutions are some of the few examples where you want the clocks to be spot on and not higher, lower or fluctuating at all :D

but audio processor clockspeed hmmmm im not sure if stuff is synced to work properly at the default clockspeed, so ocing might mess the sound up similar to overclocking game consoles where the in-game-time is increased, or the game stutters or ocing has other weird side effects.... but ill check! :D

[saaya]

just talked to the engineers, its possible, but the southbridge decodes the raw audio data from the cpu and then sends it to the codec, so youd have to change the clocks of both at the same time. and even then there wouldnt really be a benefit of it, the sample rate would probably increase, but sample rates arent really what limits audio quality atm, clean power, clean ground and shielding from signalling noises are the biggest limiting factors... outside the codec :D

our audio engineer is an audiophile and built some crazy stuff at home to listen to his classic music collection in best quality :D
so he does know a lot about audio solutions, and he said the fact that our solution and the giga and asus solutions are so close to each other shows that its mostly the codec holding things back. holding it back from the theoretical optimum though that is... hes very proud of the Sonar XiFi :D

I asked if NICs could be overclocked and he said yes, but it would mess up the protocol most likely and wouldnt speed things up but slow them down.
another thing you could overclock is the SATA reference clock which does improve performance, but... we all know most controllers freak out at even 10% ocs :D
then theres the pci bus, same as SATA, pciE, same as SATA, and then there is usb, that doesnt like ocing at all... and thats pretty much it :)
you can adust the pwm clockspeeds but thats a bit risky and would actually only really make sense on boards with a weak pwm, but since highend boards have way overpowered pwms, overclocking them is pretty pointless... well, a few board makers have added that option now, i curious if it really makes a difference or not.

[zanzabar]

can u guys get nics with cashe on them in the boards, and maybe use an intel nic instead of the broadcom or marvel, the broadcom dont get along with hyperV

[BenchZowner]

I'm using a PCI / PCI-Express sound card, but most of the users out there use the on-board SPUs, so keep a basic SPU on-board.
Oh, and I'd rather see a Analog Devices AD2000B any day instead of a RealTek.

[saaya]

broadcom is good, but their dev support is terrible... slow and unfriendly
realtek is the largest codec maker now, and they didnt get there by coincidence...
i asked our engineer about different nic codecs and he said marvell is ok and the support from them is ok, realtek is ok and their support is great, broadcom is good but their support is a nightmare, intel is ok but way overpriced.

he said the performance is about the same for all, slighty faster is intel and broadcom. broadcom doesnt have good engineering support and their chips sometimes have quirks and dont work in every scenario, like you mentioned, and intel is expensive without offering any real performance advantages... it supports vpro, which is why its expensive, but i doubt any of you cares about vpro... normal NICs cost around 2$, Intels NIC costs almost 10$...

if you find any benchmarks of the intel NIC beeing a lot faster let me know and ill push them to use it instead! :D
but from what ive seen and read, the performance difference is tiny or nonexistant...

bill, about the AD stuff, afaik asus made a deal with them so they wont supply their chips to any other board makers.
they are asus exclusive... but ill check...

[xXlAinXx]

Sayaa !! Marvell would be definitively much better duo the manageability provided by the driver inselft :bounces:
Realtek NIC division are slacking lately even in their support over End User, so having one controller which claim to be able aggregate his port with one outdated unreleased driver, mean nothing to me. :cow:
For this I will sing for sure on Marvell Yukon Ethernet solution at least the user who actually need one failover or teamed stream can truly take advantage off two Gigabit Device in Window Vista or the upcoming Win7.

Example Thread Problem - Dual Gigabit LAN support teaming function by Realtek® 8111C (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=3642096&postcount=1) :rotf:

About the poll, Sonar X-Fi MB is a pretty cool "on board" solution, for this will be fine keep it function at basic removable peripheral.

[CmB]

can u guys get nics with cashe on them in the boards, and maybe use an intel nic instead of the broadcom or marvel, the broadcom dont get along with hyperV

hell yes, i had 7 customers make a similiar request on ym custom PCs. Unfortunately I don't design boards. Gamers crave a better than onboard giga LAN. they want a dedicated nic. That Killer NIC pci card come up often though i have no experience of it.

--Chris

[saaya]

xXlAinXx, ok, ill ask our engineers to check if we can change at least one NIC to marvell or broadcom.
you seem to be into networking, do you recomend broadcom?
having two different NICs should be better i think, no teaming but thats barely beeing used and i think people prefer a marvell or broadcom NIC with a realtek over 2 realteks with teaming... :D


That Killer NIC pci card come up often though i have no experience of it.
the marketing force is strong with them, sense it i can :D

[CmB]

xXlAinXx, ok, ill ask our engineers to check if we can change at least one NIC to marvell or broadcom.
you seem to be into networking, do you recomend broadcom?
having two different NICs should be better i think, no teaming but thats barely beeing used and i think people prefer a marvell or broadcom NIC with a realtek over 2 realteks with teaming... :D


the marketing force is strong with them, sense it i can :D

Your BS-ometer went off too? Yeah, but I promised I would ask and ask I did.

[Serpentarius]

i had a question prodding my mind .. if we're to o/c the fsb .. wont the onboard audio and onboard NIC overclocks as well? since it's onboard ..

[BenchZowner]

i had a question prodding my mind .. if we're to o/c the fsb .. wont the onboard audio and onboard NIC overclocks as well? since it's onboard ..

No.
Because the PCI and PCI-Express BUS clocks stay still, no matter what you do to the Bclk, the QPI BUS, etc.

[xXlAinXx]

Well, I do not recomend broadcom for desktop segment board and about having two different on board NICs perhaps will be better keep only realtek one // save money for gain compatibility.

back on topic, I forgot one more thing :doh:
The deafult RCA S/PDIF must be nice have it replaced with one Toslink S/PDIF and much more important: having it aligned with the PCB! :wierd:

[saaya]

hmmm about the toslink thing, yeah... we will have both for now and yes we will hopefully have it aligned with the pcb.
the problem was apparently getting the io shield cut out big enough so the plug can be pushed in deep enough with the spdif coaxial plug moved further inside pcb wise.

yeah, it seems broadcom hasnt been doing too well drive wise recently...
i heard marvell is good from a few people and i asked if we can go realtek/marvell

the thing about realtek is that it used to be the cheapest codec found on all the entry level boards, and lets not kid ourselves, they sucked big time back in the days...
they have come a long way, their sound codecs are great, their nics are great... they arent the best out there but they are close.
I have to admit though that i still dont like realtek that much cause i still have this association and memory of them being the cheap stuff... but now it seems via actually replaced them there, with the cheapest nics and sound and... not that good quality :D

[saaya]

i had a question prodding my mind .. if we're to o/c the fsb .. wont the onboard audio and onboard NIC overclocks as well? since it's onboard ..

there are several reference clocks that the clock generator provides, and most if not all of them are locked. i think audio uses the same 24/48mhz clock signal as the sb and usb. the sb uses several signals tho... sata and pciE have a base clock of 100 so they are usually on the same clock signal, but since mars we actually seperated it, so ocing pciE shouldnt affect sata at all.


Well i know its a bit off but would it be worth it to get the FB instead of the BR given it is available of course, if i use the computer for midcore not so frequent gaming, best chance i have is 295 sli although unlikely and most probably some bench? the only difference between BloodRage and FlamingBlade for you will be that FlamingBlade might overclock a bit worse... it still has 2 pciE 16x slots arranged so that theres a pci slot and pciE x1 slot available even if you use 2 dual slot vgas...

FlamingBlade compared to BloodRage:
very good cpu pwm / way overpowered cpu pwm
very good mem pwm / way overpowered mem pwm
2 pciE 16x slots / 4 pciE 16x slots
1 pci slot / 2 pci slots
basic heatsink / modular tripple heatpipe 4in1 heatsink
onboard sound / seperate pcb card
realtek 889 / realtek 889 with xifi driver

the price difference between BR and FB and BR GTi and FB GTi are roughly 100$, so between BR and FB GTi its almost 150$... which is quite a lot you can save if you dont want/need all the above listed things BR boasts with.


And to not stay so off, i would really prefer the two troubleshooting "screens" on the mobo to be something like the LCD poster, and the sata to be like the BR helps with cable management for the few of us that dare think to use it for 24/7. dont get what you mean regarding the lcd poster... sata ports, yes, i know, but FB was all about having the best bang for the bug...
and if you have a look at the layout, you will see that we pulled the sata ports up above the first 16x slot, so you can use all 6 ports without being blocked by the vga :)

http://www.generation-3d.com/UserImgs/imgs/Foxconn/carte-mere/Foxconn_Flaming_Blade_01.jpg



Also the link you requested from asus's official website:
http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=709&l4=0&model=2312&modelmenu=1
that doesnt make any sense... you can install some module or change you board design to somehow magically draw esd's away from the sensitive circuits... what you can do is design the board to be more resistant to esd's and thats what everybody does, the only diference as far as i can tell is that nobody uses this for marketing :D
that board has some nice features... but im sure i wouldnt use any of them and i doubt most people would. but yeah, they are really good at making their boards look good :D

its p45 based... never heard of this board before... is it new?
i dont get why asus and gigabyte offer 4 gbit NICs...
and p45 with 4 vga slots? there are only 4 pciE switches and P45 only has 16 pciE lanes... so the first slot is 16 or 8, the second is 0 or 8, and the other 2 slots? one is 4 lanes from the southbridge for sure, so the 4th slot is 1 lane or the 3rd and 4th pciE slot share the 4 lanes of the sb and have 2 lanes each...


Also since you obviously answered the obvious question about the o/c panel regarding the ETA, ill bring up my second question which is about it's pricing and from where one can find it after it has been released. not sure about where, and pricing should be 50$ retail, maybe 40$...


Also i did notice that the w/ced mobo is not an available option on the FB, however i believe it is quite a smart idea you had there and i most certainly would like it, at least the w/c option if not the L/n /Dice potthe FB has the same 4in1 heatsink as BR but with only 1 heatpipe, so you can remove the heatsink on the nb and mount the BR waterblock or another waterblock with a custom mounting mod and cool the cpu pwm, nb and sb at the same time :)

FB GTi uses normal heatsinks without any heatpipes.
and yes, its nice to have a waterblock with the board, but it costs quite a bit, the big fat block on BR is around 20$, thats cheap for waterblocks but its a lot on added price for a board if you dont want it... FB is all about bang for the bug and thats where a waterblock doesnt fit in...


i hope you don't understand me wrong, but the best board does not help me if i can't buy it, and the BR FE is still not available in EUdont worry... im not offended by that, its not my responsability... im here to make their boards as good as possible, how to manufacture them with the best quality while keeping the price in check and distributing the boards to shops is done by others. its frustrating for me to see it not working out that well so far, but theres not much i can do about it...


Anyway i would like to have
-dual bios on a socket with jumper select like the destroyer -->i love it
-EFI Bios would be cool and would be unique
-5million temp sensors on the NB SB ect etc:D
-power- reset- CL cmos-buttons, debug led in a new color.. blue?:D ( during "normal operation" it could show the cpu or NB temp BTW)
-black PCB
-remove IDE, floppy
-easy and save bios flash with USB (not in win)
check
not unique, and its not ready... trust me... msi tried it and it blew some boards/cpus overvolting and overclocking with efi doesnt work properly at this point...
heh ok...
blue debug led on a black and red board? :o nb or cpu temp... yeah but thats a gimmick that takes quite some time and its not that useful really... id much rather have a better tweaked bios than that and im sure you agree :D
check
working on it
yes, but only with bootable usb stick atm, working on an in-bios tool


an honest pciX16 2 of them
1 honest pcieX8 slot

for a total total of 3 ;)

and midgets ?? well it a well known fact thay overclock better :rofl: eazer to handel and dont overheat :D
hmmmm well for FB we could have added a third slot but it would have increased the cost by almost 10$ and like i said...FB is all about bang for the bug and i still dont see tri vgas and quad vgas taking off... and for people who want it, its possible on BR! one card needs to be watercooled, thats the only downside, but like i also said before, changing that would make the layout worse for single and dual card setups which we thought wasnt worth it.

and midgets... actually no, i didnt know that :D

[MpG]

In regards to the topic question, I've really got no use for manufacturer-provided sound cards. The components needed to make a card significantly better are expensive, and you're not going to pull it off without boosting the motherboard price a fair bit. I'd rather just see a good quality onboard audio chip, and call it a day. If it was an option (and affordable), perhaps couple the chip with a slightly stronger amp for someone with higher-impedance headphones? But otherwise, just make sure the board's got at least one free PCI and PCI-Ex1 slot for proper aftermarket cards, even with a pair of dual-slot GPU's installed. BR setup is pretty damn good, IMO.

[msimax]

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=220391 :up:

[saaya]

In regards to the topic question, I've really got no use for manufacturer-provided sound cards. The components needed to make a card significantly better are expensive, and you're not going to pull it off without boosting the motherboard price a fair bit. I'd rather just see a good quality onboard audio chip, and call it a day. If it was an option (and affordable), perhaps couple the chip with a slightly stronger amp for someone with higher-impedance headphones? But otherwise, just make sure the board's got at least one free PCI and PCI-Ex1 slot for proper aftermarket cards, even with a pair of dual-slot GPU's installed. BR setup is pretty damn good, IMO.
thanks! ill forward the feedback about strong amps for beefy headphones :D
and yeah, glad you realized the BR layout was meant for that :)
FB and P55 will be the same, allowing you dual vga PLUS pci PLUS pciE x1 :)
that way you can even install a tv card or raid card as well PLUS running dual vga and soundcard :D


http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=220391 :up:
yeah, same as we do... but gigabyte is charging 30$ for it i heard?
on BR you get it for free! :)

seriously, 30$ is a bad ripp of... i cant tell you how much we are paying but its nowhere near that... :/ and charging 30$ for an onboard solution that you already paid for, just to have a better driver... thats just wrong imo...

[DaKon]

For me, if there was something along the lines of a xfi card (actual xfi chip used), or even better partner with AuzenTech to have a special Bloodrage AZT-FORTE. For me, I do not use onboard audio due to the fact it does not have the fidelity, power and eax 5.0 of the creative products. Also, the Forte is quite nice with headphone amp integrated.

[exe163]

I personally use a sound card and refuse to touch any on board audio processor. 1 vote on "cut the crap" and make it cheaper.

[saaya]

For me, if there was something along the lines of a xfi card (actual xfi chip used), or even better partner with AuzenTech to have a special Bloodrage AZT-FORTE. For me, I do not use onboard audio due to the fact it does not have the fidelity, power and eax 5.0 of the creative products. Also, the Forte is quite nice with headphone amp integrated.
the actual xifi chip is quite expensive, the marketing xifi chip is actually an audigy1 chip, yes, its that old, and its actually worse than the realtec codec we use now! :)

an auzentech card would be nice, but again the price would be quite high... and a bundle would be really low volume... i think thats more like something a local shop should do, offer a bundle of a board plus soundcard plus vga, maybe plus cpu as well :)


I personally use a sound card and refuse to touch any on board audio processor. 1 vote on "cut the crap" and make it cheaper.youd be surprised how little the onboard sound costs :D
price perf wise onboard sound is simply amazing! :)
looking at the poll results it seems that 50% of the people use onboard sound, the rest use soundcards, but of those 50% like to have onboard sound anyways... so there are still a lot of people who want it... and removing it could really drive people away from buying the board, i wouldnt want to pay 30$ extra for a basic soundcard if the board i want doesnt have onboard sound... and propper soundcards actually cost even more.

thanks a lot for the feedback everybody! :toast:

[Utnorris]

I like the Card that comes with the BR, but having it completely onboard wouldn't be a deal breaker for me, I am still running my Boston Accoustics from almost 10 years ago in stereo. :D

As far as the 5 /14" bay display panel, seriously, when will it be available?

[Utnorris]

One more thing, the water block that comes with the BR is one solid water block that I would put up there with EK, BP, Swiftech and Koolance, seriously, an awesome water block.