Motherboard manufacturer with best USB output?

[dbull12]

I'm probably going to be upgrading my PC in the near future and was curious if anyone knows whether there are manufacturers to avoid or gravitate towards as far as the quality of their USB outputs go. I use a USB 2.0 output from the motherboard into the USB-C input on my Schii Modi Multibit 2. I'd be looking at the typical motherboard manufacturers like Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and ASRock.

I realize that motherboard USB might not be the best possible quality, but I'm not ready to get into the world of streamers and all that yet. I appreciate any input about whether the manufacturer or motherboard model really matters much for USB noise/jitter!

 

[Voidrunner]

Not really, no. They're largely all using the same USB controllers and I'm not aware of any of them doing anything special to isolate USB power. Jitter also isn't an issue when it comes to modern USB DACs as they're basically all asynchronous or should be. USB noise may or may not be an issue, but it depends a lot on the specific combination of equipment. You might have issues with a particular amplifier or DAC, but not with another. No telling until you put it all together.

 

[sygnus21]

What he said ^^^

I'm on a Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Xtreme and run my Teac UD-503 DAC off the USB port off the motherboard. Zero issues noise or otherwise.

 

[silent-circuit]

Some motherboards do have the option to disable power out on some USB ports, to ostensibly reduce noise when used to connect a DAC... But it's probably not worth seeking these out.

 

[Voidrunner]

Some motherboards do have the option to disable power out on some USB ports, to ostensibly reduce noise when used to connect a DAC... But it's probably not worth seeking these out.

Do they? Can't say I've ever run into that. Which ones offer that as a feature?

 

[sygnus21]

Some motherboards do have the option to disable power out on some USB ports, to ostensibly reduce noise when used to connect a DAC... But it's probably not worth seeking these out.

Care to clarify?

And if you "disable power" to the USB ports of course there will be zero noise.... because there is zero power to them. Which means anything connected to them won't work.

What am I missing???

 

[dbull12]

Thanks everyone! Good to know this isn't really something I need to consider. My current mobo is the Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite AX V2. I don't notice any noise from the USB output but you know how it is - read the forums enough and you start to get FOMO and think you might be missing out on unlocking some higher level of quality from your chain.

 

[silent-circuit]

Care to clarify?

And if you "disable power" to the USB ports of course there will be zero noise.... because there is zero power to them. Which means anything connected to them won't work.

What am I missing???

Power pins are disabled - it's a data only connection then, the connected device has to provide its own power (DAC needs a separate power source - battery or AC). Gigabyte calls it DAC UP - the labeled ports have their own supposedly separate, cleaner power supply, but power can also be disabled in BIOS.

 

[sygnus21]

Do they? Can't say I've ever run into that. Which ones offer that as a feature?

You can disable power to the USB ports via the BIOS, but that move will disable them.

Power pins are disabled - it's a data only connection then, the connected device has to provide its own power (DAC needs a separate power source - battery or AC). Gigabyte calls it DAC UP - the labeled ports have their own supposedly separate, cleaner power supply, but power can also be disabled in BIOS.

Thanks for the clarity.

Yes, I'm familiar with DAC up as I have a Gigabyte board (GA-Z270X-Gaming 8) that supports it. Never found it to make a difference with my DAC. I also say that as my current, newer Gigabyte board (Z390 Aorus Xtreme) does not support it, and the DAC acts no differently.

But yeah, I got you now.

 

[Voidrunner]

Power pins are disabled - it's a data only connection then, the connected device has to provide its own power (DAC needs a separate power source - battery or AC). Gigabyte calls it DAC UP - the labeled ports have their own supposedly separate, cleaner power supply, but power can also be disabled in BIOS.

That appears to be a deprecated feature. None of their current boards have it anymore. Looks like it was really only present on the X370 AM4 and Intel Z370-399 boards in the latest iteration of DAC-UP 2. Same for MSI. And my Asus ROG Strix X570-F doesn't have anything like that either.
*shrug*

 

[574206]

I'm probably going to be upgrading my PC in the near future and was curious if anyone knows whether there are manufacturers to avoid or gravitate towards as far as the quality of their USB outputs go. I use a USB 2.0 output from the motherboard into the USB-C input on my Schii Modi Multibit 2. I'd be looking at the typical motherboard manufacturers like Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and ASRock.

I realize that motherboard USB might not be the best possible quality, but I'm not ready to get into the world of streamers and all that yet. I appreciate any input about whether the manufacturer or motherboard model really matters much for USB noise/jitter!

I'm not feeling well, so I'm not going to stick around this thread after my post.

I hate using the motherboard USB, so the Manufacturer is not much of a concern for I. There's just too many pollutants in a motherboard's USB bus. Just think about all the times you insert a USB stick and get no response. Motherboard USB ports totally not quality, totally. With PCI-E USB cards, you have a dedicated path to the CPU for USB use cases.

So I recommend a Asmedia 3142 USB chipset from Startech:

https://www.startech.com/en-us/search?search_term=pcie usb

https://www.startech.com/en-us/cards-adapters/pexusb312c3

Just make sure the specs indicate Asmedia 3142 chipset.

Sometimes, provantage has good deals on Startech products. I always check before buying elsewhere:

https://www.provantage.com/service/searchsvcs/Q?SEC=&QUERY=startech+pci-e&SUBMIT.x=0&SUBMIT.y=0

If you look at JCAT USB Card XE, they also use Asmedia 3142:

https://jcat.eu/product/usb-card-xe/

If the Graphics card blocks a PCI-E lane (takes two slots), there are extension adapters on Amazon as a workaround.

I combine this with a USB optical cable and a Uptone USPCB because I hate traditional wiring.





https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/taiko-audio-sgm-extreme-the-crème-de-la-crème.27433/post-631947

I power the USB optical cable with Industrial Strength Super Capacitors 24/7 @5V @a few thousand Farads. This allows me to be completely off Mains. It needs 3 minutes at a random time to fully re-charge over a 24 hour period, then it goes back to being completely off Noisy Mains power 100% via optical isolators.





If I can't use USB optical, then I make my own solid core USB PWR cables. I have not tried making my own solid core USB DATA cables yet as I use USB optical for that use case. I believe EMI/RFI cannot sneak into solid core as it can with traditional cooper wiring because it's not penetrable. The above photo is using thick, cooper solid core @12 Guage. I use 20-22 Guage for USB PWR solid core cables.

I only use this for Gaming only though with an FPGA DAC as I'm running a low latency realtime kernel Audiophile OS. I have another dedicated Music Server powered by Super Capacitors for Music dedicated exclusively to only 16-bit original CD sample rate. With anything USB, you need to convert to 32-bit before hitting the DAC so I stay away completely from USB for Music enjoyment, USB for Gaming only is okay.

Good luck. Good question.

Going forward, I'm trying to only procure PC's which I can power with Super Capacitors (No Noisy Mains) and has at least one PCI-E lane because zero to low noise is addictive and good for ear health since I can listen at super low volumes with all the details:

 

[sygnus21]

That appears to be a deprecated feature. None of their current boards have it anymore. Looks like it was really only present on the X370 AM4 and Intel Z370-399 boards in the latest iteration of DAC-UP 2. Same for MSI. And my Asus ROG Strix X570-F doesn't have anything like that either.
*shrug*

It was actually on a few boards. 3 of the 5 board I have had it - X85, Z170, and Z270.

Anyway, I think it was just a sells gimmick that never really took off. I never used it. And BTW, other board vendors may have called it something else, so....

 

[sygnus21]

I hate using the motherboard USB, so the Manufacturer is not much of a concern for I. There's just too many pollutants in a motherboard's USB bus. Just think about all the times you insert a USB stick and get no response. Motherboard USB ports totally not quality, totally. With PCI-E USB cards, you have a dedicated path to the CPU for USB use cases.

I don't use none of those "clean power" USB devices as I simply don't believe in them. No issues with my DAC.

That's me.

 

[Voidrunner]

It was actually on a few boards. 3 of the 5 board I have had it - X85, Z170, and Z270.

Anyway, I think it was just a sells gimmick that never really took off. I never used it. And BTW, other board vendors may have called it something else, so....

I was referring strictly to the DAC-UP 2 version. And yeah, MSI had it as well, but I forget what they called it. I skipped a handful of chipset generations from both Intel and AMD, so never had a board with the feature from anybody.

 

[Voidrunner]

I don't use none of those "clean power" USB devices as I simply don't believe in them. No issues with my DAC.

That's me.

My SMSL M500 MkIII is utterly quiet even with IEMs. I have a surge protector on it, that's it. When I swapped my pre-amplifier and power-amp from Rotel RC-970BX/RB-850 to Acurus L10/A100 I did run into GPU noise, but it was fixed with a USB isolator that just shuts off the power delivery and ground. Since the M500 has its own power supply, it caused no issues.