A novel way to massively improve the SQ of computer audio streaming

[rickca]

1 minute ago, guiltyboxswapper said:

I have the Element H myself

So how did it sound, and what did you compare it to?  It's around $250, so about half the price of the JCAT USB Femto card.

[rickca]

19 minutes ago, Nenon said:

I use one 12V rail. Although you have an 8-pin connector, four of the pins are the DC+ and the other four are the DC-. I mean they are paralleled on the motherboard and are not separate inputs. At least that's how they are on my Asrock gaming motherboard. I think the reason they use 8-pins instead of 4 is to end up with a higher gauge wire when you combine four parallel wires from the power supply to the motherboard.

You misunderstood me.  The motherboards I'm talking about have dual 8-pin EPS12V connectors or one 8-pin plus one 4-pin, not just one 8-pin connector with 4x12V pins and 4xground.  For example, ASRock Phantom Gaming 9 Z390 has both an 8-pin and a 4-pin.

 

Some of the latest PC SMPS have two cables each with a 4+4 connector for this situation.  They may have a single 12V rail design.  For example, Seasonic Prime Ultra Titanium 1000W.

[rickca]

1 hour ago, Nenon said:

Does it say anything in the manual what each is used for? I haven't used a motherboard like that yet. Have you checked with a multimeter if the DC+ on one of the EPS connector is connected to the DC+ on the other? It seems like you may need (benefit from) 5 rails for a motherboard like that.

The manual doesn't say anything helpful, I checked it before I posted my question.  I don't have the motherboard, but I've noticed many of the better X570 and Z390 boards have these connectors.  I will read some reviews.  I think you can probably just use one 8-pin EPS12V as long as you're not overclocking, but I'd like to verify that. 

[rickca]

For those contemplating building a server with a Ryzen 3000 series CPU, here's a guide to a bewildering number of new X570 motherboards.  If you are particularly interested in the VRM/power delivery design, this same article has an excellent summary table.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14161/the-amd-x570-motherboard-overview

 

 

[rickca]

23 hours ago, numlog said:

Those chipset fans are a huge turn off

I agree.  The sole X570 motherboard without a chipset fan is the Gigabyte Aorus Extreme.  However, the MSI X570 motherboards have their Frozr heatsink design that automatically adjusts the fan speed based on the chipset temperature.  I think it doesn't spin up until the temperature hits some threshold.  That's how it works on my MSI GTX 1060.

 

 

[rickca]

Here's an interesting article discussing TDP and turbo from the Intel Fellow responsible for many of the patents in the area of power states and power budget allocation.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14582/talking-tdp-turbo-and-overclocking-an-interview-with-intel-fellow-guy-therien

[rickca]

5 hours ago, numlog said:

No because these adapters use onboard DC-DC converters to get 3.3V from the 12V rail.

Why would they not just use 3.3V from the PCIe slot and SATA power connectors?

[rickca]

3 hours ago, Gavin1977 said:

https://nl.hardware.info/artikel/9411/15-amd-x570-moederborden-review-op-de-proef-met-een-3900x

What an excellent article!  I will check this website in future.  Thanks for the link.

[rickca]

7 minutes ago, austinpop said:

The obvious comparo of "massive" interest would be - an identical upstream chain followed by:

• Phoenix -> DAC, vs.
• tX-USBultra SE (SR-7 DR, Ref-10 10MHz reference clock) -> DAC.

Finally!  At 3x the price of tX-USBultra and 10x the price of an ISO REGEN, this better be mind blowing.  

[rickca]

22 minutes ago, austinpop said:

• a 19V/5A rail to an HDPlex DC-ATX adapter, which then feeds the ATX input (12v, 5v, 3.3v) of the motherboard.
• a separate 12V/5A rail to the EPS input of the motherboard, to power the CPU separately.

Looks like 2 x PH SR5 would fit the bill nicely. 

 

How does Roy manage to run an i7-8700K (95W TDP) with only 12V/5A?

[rickca]

6 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

The key is that we run at very low (<1% ave) CPU utilization, so the actual power draw is way lower than TDP, which is just an idealized number anyway.

OK.  So obviously the design considerations are a whole lot different if you want to run HQPlayer.

[rickca]

43 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

The key is that we run at very low (<1% ave) CPU utilization, so the actual power draw is way lower than TDP, which is just an idealized number anyway.

I know you're running Euphony, but just a warning to anyone who plans to run Windows 10.  The power requirements to do maintenance (like upgrading to Version 1903 from Version 1809) will likely overstress a 12V/5A supply.  I fried the rectifier on my HDPLEX 200W LPS (19V/10A) while doing such maintenance with a 95W i7-6700K.  I was using the 200W LPS together with an HDPLEX 400W DC-ATX.  HDPLEX has since made some changes to the 200W LPS to prevent this from happening.

[rickca]

1 hour ago, Chopin75 said:

Also didn’t someone here tested this out and found that it requires about 6-7 A ? Or was it 6-7V. I can’t remember, sorry for confusing people! 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/46748-new-hdplex-200w-lps/?do=findComment&comment=968377

 

[rickca]

1 minute ago, George Hincapie said:

Why is he telling us his age?

LOL I thought that was strange too.  At least he didn't say 37 going on 38!  He is an excellent dealer, I've bought things from him.  Really responsive communications.

[rickca]

26 minutes ago, seeteeyou said:

£2250 a pop for Phoenix

At current exchange rates, that's about $2775 in USD.  The USA price is $3150.  I guess that's a nice uplift for the US distributor.

[rickca]

1 hour ago, Chopin75 said:

Is the price without VAT? 

Good question.  If the UK price includes VAT, then the US price (which never includes sales tax) looks even worse.

[rickca]

AMD just announced that Ryzen 9 3950X is delayed till November.  The next generation of Threadripper CPUs are coming in November as well.

[rickca]

I'd been waiting for Intel to release the M15 Optane.  This disappointing news is this from an Anandtech article

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14903/intel-shares-new-optane-and-3d-nand-roadmap

 

The 2nd generation consumer Optane M.2 drives (Optane Memory M15 and Optane SSD 815P) have been officially cancelled. The 815P is dead because 118GB is simply too small for a standalone SSD to be competitive, and the M15 is dead because there aren't enough systems still shipping with mechanical hard drives to support another generation of cache drives. The current Optane Memory M10 and Optane SSD 800P are not being discontinued yet.

[rickca]

Intel has reduced prices on 9th Gen CPUs without integrated graphics (F and KF models) to better compete with Ryzen 3000.

Note that some of the base/turbo frequencies in the chart on page 1 of this article are incorrect.  For example, 9700F is listed as 3.6/4.9 GHz, it should be 3.0/4.7 GHz.  Anandtech is usually pretty quick to make corrections.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14941/intel-announces-price-cut-for-9th-generation-f-and-kf-processors

[rickca]

23 minutes ago, Bricki said:

When my Etheregen arrives in January I'm going to need more weights to hold it down 🤣

I've actually been considering flat ethernet cables for the EtherREGEN to keep it from moving around.  Congratulations on some really good experimentation.

[rickca]

5 minutes ago, seeteeyou said:

TDP is 25W

Yes but NUC10i7FN has a very low base frequency of 1.1 GHz and a rather high turbo of 4.7 GHz.  So with some cores in turbo it's going to draw a lot more than 25W. 

[rickca]

40 minutes ago, frederick184 said:

Yes, Corsair Dominator Platinum non-ECC ram vs Apacer ECC ram in server.

57 minutes ago, Chopin75 said:

I also have similar findings from non-ECC G.Skill  switched to ECC APacer

 

OK so is the better sound quality due to industrial Apacer vs other commercial grade brands, or is due to ECC vs non-ECC?

[rickca]

2 minutes ago, auricgoldfinger said:

Care to be the guinea pig?

Nope.  My current system doesn't support ECC memory.

[rickca]

Comet Lake desktop lineup from Intel has leaked.  This is still 14 nm, the 10 nm desktop timeframe is unknown.

So we will have 10 core/20 thread i9-10900K as the new top of the heap.  Really there's nothing all that exciting here over the current 9th generation desktops.

 

https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3084095/intel-comet-lake-s-desktop-processor-lineup-in-full

[rickca]

2 hours ago, austinpop said:

a lower-current application powering the tX-USBultra

What applications are you comparing?