Received my gigabyte G1 Sniper z87 board.. thought I'd update the thread as there may be some of you who are wondering if the Usb Dac feature is a gimmick..
I've been testing it along with a Musical Fidelity M1a (async) Dac, which unfortunately doesn't offer galvanic isolation - hence why I bought the Sniper Z87 board in the first place, hoping it would offer a solution. Compared to my old motherboard, which was also a Gigabyte, using the new board's Dac-up port (opposed to a standard usb on my old motherboard) combined with Usb power switched off in the Bios, the Sniper Z87 is doing a really good job at cleaning up the audio (the blackground is more apparent) making the audio much more Rich and airy, seems to offer cleaner Dynamics (can pick out highs from lows better and much more space around each sound.
Before buying the z87 motherboard I had tried many things to try and solve what I believed was a deterioration in sound caused by the computer, including removing both ground and Power wires from the Usb cable, which solved half the problem, the audio sounded better, but the computer was still sending noise into the data wires..
I was constantly switching back and forth from optical to Usb and never pleased with both. I believe I've found a solution and it hasn't cost me an arm and leg. For the last two days I've been happy with just Usb, surely that means something.
In case you're wondering what type of gear i'm using to test the differences.. here's my Audio chain - Computer [usb] > m1a Dac [rca] > Emotiva Mini [speaker taps] > Hifiman He-500
