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A crowd funded motherboard(s) for audiophiles - Part 2


CUSTOM MOTHERBOARD DESIGN CHOICES - IS THERE A CONSENSUS ON REQUIREMENTS?   

61 members have voted

  1. 1. In thinking about a crowd funded CA motherboard which form factor are you most likely to purchase and/or fund?

    • Mini-ITX - 1 PCIE slot, may be possible to split into two
    • Micro-ATX - 4 PCIE slots
    • ATX - 6 PCIE slots

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  • Poll closed on 03/18/18 at 04:00 PM

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27 minutes ago, Lebouwsky said:

Just out of curiousity, why would a server need more than 1 or 2 PCI-e slots? An usb card is all you need right? What am I missing since everybody votes for micro-atx. From a “low footprint” perspective less seems more to me.

second for nic card. but nowadays you would use usb with direct connection to dac, or ethernet, connected to renderer/streamer, not together(usually), as thats two different concepts. 

So i can live even with one PCI-e. Install usb or nic card, depending what i want.

2 hours ago, lateboomer said:

which 2 for nic card

you dont need to two PCI-e for two nics. take a look on JCAT net card. it has 2 ethernet ports.

dCS Network Bridge | Audio Note DAC2 Signature | Audio Note M5 Preamp | Audio Note Empress Silver Monoblocks | Audio Note AN-E/Spe HE Speakers

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external power, isolation of main board, used much better components, it is important if you are going to use some online services or keep music on NAS or when use streamers. its the same, as use sotm usb card and internal motherboard usb ports, difference is huge.

dCS Network Bridge | Audio Note DAC2 Signature | Audio Note M5 Preamp | Audio Note Empress Silver Monoblocks | Audio Note AN-E/Spe HE Speakers

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The basics of a motherboard are going to be the same from one motherboard to another, most if not all of the interfaces (DDR memory, Ethernet, PCI interface) have documented rules on how they must be laid out. Power delivery system has to be optimised and again will follow previous design practices. Then there is testing of the high speed interfaces, never mind the layout...

Differences seen between motherboards is usually number of layers and attention to detail such as minimising skew lengths between skew groups such as DDR data buses etc. all these things add cost and complexity, far easier to look for a decent mature product and use that IMO, as I know what a pain it can be doing motherboards... Never mind getting EMC compliance tests passed. On a good day your looking at 1 moth or more just in layout (full time) never mind the time to generate the schematics, source parts etc. etc. A big and possibly costly project.

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2 hours ago, marce said:

The basics of a motherboard are going to be the same from one motherboard to another, most if not all of the interfaces (DDR memory, Ethernet, PCI interface) have documented rules on how they must be laid out. Power delivery system has to be optimised and again will follow previous design practices. Then there is testing of the high speed interfaces, never mind the layout...

Differences seen between motherboards is usually number of layers and attention to detail such as minimising skew lengths between skew groups such as DDR data buses etc. all these things add cost and complexity, far easier to look for a decent mature product and use that IMO, as I know what a pain it can be doing motherboards... Never mind getting EMC compliance tests passed. On a good day your looking at 1 moth or more just in layout (full time) never mind the time to generate the schematics, source parts etc. etc. A big and possibly costly project.

Marce, yes I for one am not ruling out that we may end up with an existing product for any number of reasons. Stay tuned.

Pareto Audio aka nuckleheadaudio

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It's gonna be tricky to pick the "right" choice unless we're aware of how many slots are directly connected to the CPU, and then how many lanes would each slot occupy.

 

For the Intel Core Processor Family, how many slots are "forced" to go through PCH if DFI / Supermicro were confirming that 16 lanes could only be divided into 3 slots since that really depends on how the CPU was designed in the first place? The only alternative should be a "PLX chip" for PCIe bifurcation while that might not be ideal for sound quality, not to mention the additional costs of a "special" riser card with 4 slots.

 

And then we don't even know if 4 slots for the Micro-ATX form factor were even possible to begin with, was that actually confirmed by DFI / Supermicro by any chance?

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11 minutes ago, seeteeyou said:

And then we don't even know if 4 slots for the Micro-ATX form factor were even possible to begin with, was that actually confirmed by DFI / Supermicro by any chance?

A typical Z370 mATX motherboard has

 

2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8) 
2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x1

Pareto Audio AMD 7700 Server --> Berkeley Alpha USB --> Jeff Rowland Aeris --> Jeff Rowland 625 S2 --> Focal Utopia 3 Diablos with 2 x Focal Electra SW 1000 BE subs

 

i7-6700K/Windows 10  --> EVGA Nu Audio Card --> Focal CMS50's 

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@marce The price delta between a good existing 'commercial' quality mb and the consumer one is quite large.  Same exact mb other than the fact one zips out the door full of power leaks and other unmistakable signs of low QC.  My understanding was this forms the basis of a community attempt to examine that commercial quality board and get the manufacturer to take it up a notch or two.  Effectively let us do R&D on something they probably already have cooked up for experimenting with new technology years off in the average users ecosystem.  

 

Then get a custom BIOS to choke off everything too hard to physically eliminate from the board and start lumping audiophile PSU and cards at the thing.  Sweet and simple!

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7 minutes ago, rickca said:

A typical Z370 mATX motherboard has

 

2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8) 
2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x1

 

Thanks for pointing out my stupidity, ha ha. I was so fixated on CPU PCIe lanes versus PCH PCIe lanes and then I didn't even go check some Micro-ATX motherboards out.

 

BTW, it's gonna be interesting to see we're allowed to do about powering those slots. If they weren't going through regulators for obvious reasons, could we add our own LT3045 by any chance?

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One of the main things for PC noise is the number of return planes... Commercial boards can be done on 8 layers (6 if you are a total cheep sake), the higher end PC motherboards tend to be 12-16 layers, the extra layers being solid return path layers (0V/GND) so that each signal layer is next to a return path and better between two return paths, though for ultimate noise limitation some signals (DDR) are best between a GND and the supply voltage layer as they will use both at different cycles of the signal for return path purposes, but that starts getting silly in terms of layout time and layer count.

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10 minutes ago, seeteeyou said:

I was so fixated on CPU PCIe lanes versus PCH PCIe lanes and then I didn't even go check some Micro-ATX motherboards out.

You also need to check on the block diagram, on a typical motherboard with 4 slots, you may find 3 of those go direct to the CPU and the 4th via the PCH. Therefore how much degradation if any will occur via the PCH route? Can we test this? It may leave only 3 of the 4 usable.

Also you will find on most of the medium to high powered motherboards, USB and LAN, input are all via the PCH, therefore will we be using up 2 of our 3  'good' PCIE slots for a USB and LAN card ?

The good thing about the SOC boards is that lAN, USB and PCIE are all direct to processor and this could the reason a lot of manufacturers are opting for these boards, for sound quality.

I would agree with @ Marce that its unfeasable to design a board from scratch unless we used the modular route and we might need to choose one for modification, with some manufacturer input if possible, eg. certain upgrades and BIOS tweaks.

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It might be a little harder to design but maybe go with one of the new AMD Ryzen APU because there is more PCI lanes to deal with and the graphics processor is better. Just a thought.

Current:  Daphile on an AMD A10-9500 with 16 GB RAM

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If mini ITX is capable of 3 PCIe slots I'm not sure why the survey is showing it as having 1.  The smallest sized board as possible is preferable.

 

Larry, can you confirm mini ITX is only capable of 1 PCIe, with the possibility of a second?  If it actually is capable of a second we should know for certain before making a decision on the form factor.

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Obviously I'm not Larry but physically speaking Mini-ITX should be able to handle 3 slots

 

https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/X99E-ITXac/

dhphnDm.jpg

 

There's one x16 slot that's most likely connected to all 16 lanes of the CPU.

 

And then there's another M.2 slot with 4 lanes that are most likely going through PCH.

 

We've got one more slot for Mini PCIe cards, once again we should be talking about PCH for this case.

 

So basically both M.2 and Mini PCIe are no good for obvious reasons, now we're left with PCIe bifurcation if DFI / Supermicro were adding a "PLX chip" of some sort.

 

What if we're getting SoC from Celeron instead? Only 6 lanes are available but we could split them up into 4 slots.

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I wouldn't count too much on bifurcation.  Besides BIOS support you need cards/drivers that work with it.

Pareto Audio AMD 7700 Server --> Berkeley Alpha USB --> Jeff Rowland Aeris --> Jeff Rowland 625 S2 --> Focal Utopia 3 Diablos with 2 x Focal Electra SW 1000 BE subs

 

i7-6700K/Windows 10  --> EVGA Nu Audio Card --> Focal CMS50's 

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For 2 channel upsampling, I see no need for more than 2 direct to CPU PCIE slots, one for an Optane boot SSD x4 lanes and one x4 for a 2 or 4 port externally powered USB card.  There seem to be many motherboards meeting these minimal requirements.

 

A direct to CPU m.2 nvme x4 lanes slot is a substitute for one of the pcie slots above. This is tougher to find, but could make mini-itx possible as a form factor.

 

For multi-channel hqplayer upsampling a third pcie slot at x8 lanes enables cuda support.

 

So to summarize a motherboard with 2 direct to CPU pcie slots, x8, x4 and a x4 m.2 nvme slot covers most needs and doesn't exceed the 16 lane limit on socket 1151 CPUs.

 

As to power usage and on board switching DC to DC converters, many boards are populated with components we don't need such as hdaudio, sata ports, USB ports, and Ethernet nics.  Some boards allow one to disable these components via jumpers which is ideal because the circuitry can't make any noise if powered off. Others components can often be disabled in bios, like SATA controllers and serial ports.

 

Powering down the equivalent circuits in a SOC seems impossible, so software based disablement is the best we can hope for there.

 

So to summarize, a MicroATX board with 2 direct to cpu pcie slots, x4, x8 and a x4 direct to CPU m.2 slot  with the ability to power down unneeded components seems perfect for our needs.

 

Does anyone know of a board that can do this?

Pareto Audio aka nuckleheadaudio

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Maybe some of us just happened to forget why we'd like to bypass PCH at all costs? Or someone else might have played the devil's advocate somewhere?

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/?page=59&tab=comments#comment-653640

On 4/20/2017 at 3:29 PM, romaz said:

As previously discussed, the disadvantage that many motherboards have is that most buses (i.e. SATA, USB, LAN, video, audio) connect to the CPU via a PCH (Platform Controller Hub).  Back in the day, we used to refer to this as Southbridge although today, PCH is the more correct term.  While the "first class" Northbridge connected directly to the CPU via the front-side bus (FSB), the "coach class" Southbridge (or now, the PCH) connected to the CPU via a slower and more congested Direct Media Interface (DMI) and so having to go through this DMI usually represented an added latency.  Because this PCH generally utilizes a 1.05V rail, in theory anyway, this is probably also a noisier pathway.  

 

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20 minutes ago, seeteeyou said:

Maybe some of us just happened to forget why we'd like to bypass PCH at all costs? Or someone else might have played the devil's advocate somewhere?

This is true but modern chipsets especially the latest 'Optane ready' ones are very fast- low latency. The only way is to test this out, move your PCIE card back and fourth between a slot connected to PCH and one direct to processor, shame we don't have the luxury of buying 20 boards and testing them, including some noise measurements. :)

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18 minutes ago, LTG2010 said:

This is true but modern chipsets especially the latest 'Optane ready' ones are very fast- low latency. The only way is to test this out, move your PCIE card back and fourth between a slot connected to PCH and one direct to processor, shame we don't have the luxury of buying 20 boards and testing them, including some noise measurements. :)

Having moved my USB card between PCH and CPU direct slots, improvement in SQ from CPU direct slots is easily heard.

Pareto Audio aka nuckleheadaudio

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