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Pre-purchase question about Z370-F or Z370-E audio features

rubenalamina
Level 7
Hi, I'm deciding betwee these two mobos for my upgrade but I'm having problems finding information about their audio features/software. I'm interested in having stereo to 5.1 upmixing like DTS Connect or Dolby Digital. Do they come with the option to do that? I saw that the Z370 MSI mobos come with an audio engine called Nahimic that can do this even when it is, supposedly since I couldn't find any more info, not proper DTS or DD support.

I read in theese forums that owners of the Crosshair 6 Hero mobos had the option for DTS and DDT but newer drivers/software completely removed it.

Do they support ASIO for better performance when recording or outputting audio?

Any other thoughts owners may have on these are also appreciated.
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4 REPLIES 4

Daniel0303
Level 7
I don't have those board but i got a Crosshair vi hero and Maximus ix Extreme, the on board sound sounds like crap if you compare sound card, even a lower end usb sound card like xonar u3 would outperform those on board sounds.

I would suggest to get a dedicated sound card for your setup if you looking on those board just for the sounds

Daniel0303 wrote:
I don't have those board but i got a Crosshair vi hero and Maximus ix Extreme, the on board sound sounds like crap if you compare sound card, even a lower end usb sound card like xonar u3 would outperform those on board sounds.

I would suggest to get a dedicated sound card for your setup if you looking on those board just for the sounds


Thanks for the reply. I have a SounBlaster Z audio card that has great sound and use it to upmix all stereo sources to DTS or DD. I asked about audio features in these new boards since I'm willing to give the new audio chips a try.

One problem I have with my SoundBlaster is that I can't get any sound from other sources if one is doing 5.1 encoding. Example: J. River Media Center has the option to use their internal encoding engine and the sound is awesome. However, if I'm listening to music I won't hear any other app or websites unless I manually stop the music playback.

Can you tell me if you have any options on your audio manager software to convert stereo to 5.1 via optical output (SPDI/F)?

Daniel0303
Level 7

Thanks for that link. I assume it will be the case with the Strix Z370 lineup that they won't have the DTS or DD options enabled. I'm tempted to get the Prime Z370-A since it has those options listed in the specification sheet but I'm put off by the plastic cover on the VRM area, specially since I'm doing RGB lightning on this build.