H110 vs. H270

Trackr

[H]ard|Gawd
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Feb 10, 2011
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I'm building a rig for a friend.

i5-7500 and GTX 1060.

The two motherboards I'm looking at are:

GA-H270M-D3H and GA-H110M-S2H

I don't see anything on the H270 that is worth the price (double where I live), except that it's clearly a higher quality board.

Only thing the H110 lacks is 5.1 audio.

So, either I get the H270 or the H110 and an ASUS Xonar DSX, which comes down to the same price.

What do you guys think?
 
they both do 5.1 without anything extra so grab the h110 but make sure the bios is kaby compatible or have a skylake to flash with.

edit: looks like the new ones should be shipping with a kaby bios(f20) oh and the h110 only has two ram slots.
 
Yeah, the H110M-S2H is Kaby compatible.

The question is whether the lower quality chokes will handle the i5-7500 and whether the Xonar DSX is a lot better than ALC892.

Doesn't anyone sell X-Fi cards anymore? All I see are jacked up prices for a 10 year-old card.
 
Yeah, the H110M-S2H is Kaby compatible.

The question is whether the lower quality chokes will handle the i5-7500 and whether the Xonar DSX is a lot better than ALC892.

Doesn't anyone sell X-Fi cards anymore? All I see are jacked up prices for a 10 year-old card.

The i5-7500 is a 65W TDP part. The motherboard lists support for the 91W TDP i7-7700K. The i5-7500 is a locked part and you won't be overclocking it. I doubt you have to worry about power delivery.

In general, the audio quality of a dedicated soundcard is better because of the isolation of the circuit board from other system components. Manufacturers have put a lot of effort recently into isolating the audio circuit on integrated audio chips to reduce or eliminate interference from other on-board devices. For general use by non-audiophiles, the difference in sound quality between a higher-end on-board audio solution and a dedicated card is imperceptible.

If sound quality is a primary concern, then an external DAC being fed via a digital output from the PC to an amplifier and speakers is the best way to go. There are plenty of recommendations floating around on here for budget DIY audio solutions that rock.
 
If it means anything, I disabled my ALC888 and popped in a Xonar DG a little over a year ago.

Definitely a WORLD of difference.

The bass booms easily 5x better. I had to turn my sub almost all the way down because my neighbor complained....
 
I think my main concern is that the H110 feels and looks cheap.. and also old.

Otherwise, it would be a much better option to go for it and the Xonar DSX.

It seems silly to buy such a cheap board for an i5-7500/GTX 1060 build.

But this is an HTPC tied to some decent speakers.. though it's not being built for audiophiles.

Tough choice.

Maybe I should go ask what's a good bargain for sound cards.
 
also consider how you will be hooking it up, optical or analog.
its not really cheap but inexpensive. its a decent quality board.
 
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