Legit Reviews

BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z77X Intel Z77 Motherboard Review

BIOSTAR is entering the Hi-Fi audio market with their Hi-Fi series of Intel motherboards. Today we are going to take a look at the BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z77X motherboard and see how the audio performance will stack up against the performance of the Realtek ALC898 High Definition audio codec. Are we going to be able to see the difference between the BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z77X and the Realtek ALC898? Read on to find out!

The BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z77X is certainly a motherboard for designed for audiophiles. We like that BIOSTAR was able to isolate the audio chip from the rest of the board and use an EMI shield along with high-quality components to improve onboard sound. Audio testing is very tough and while we were able to see some differences in RightMark Audio Analyzer, it was tough to...

Article Title: BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z77X Intel Z77 Motherboard Review
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/2027/1/
Pricing At Time of Print: $149.99 plus shipping

It would seem like you would be better off spending less on the motherboard and picking up an ASUS Xonar headphone sound card.
ASUS Xonar DGX
What do you think?

Honestly it all depends on what you're looking for. Personally I have always been fine with the onboard audio, plus integrated audio has come along way in the past few years. Perhaps it's simply that I don't know what I'm missing. I'm toying with the idea of picking up a sound card just as a reference so we can see how motherboard audio compares to a discrete card

The reason I mentioned the aftermarket sound card is because half the media kit slides were about the sound. I know that onboard has come a long way but I have a sneaking suspicion that the dedicated card would score better in this particular case.

On the newer P9X79 Deluxe motherboard I am currently using, the onboard sound has come quite a bit from the realtek onboard sound system we became so familiar with. During my "sound card testing" it was marginally lower then that of my Creative X-FI Fatality Titanium dedicated sound card, as far as testing was concerned. Now when it came to tweaking the sound, ie eq and other attributes the X-FI was vastly superior in this aspect. Unfortunately I did not include this portion of testing in the review because I wanted a bit more of an understanding of each of the tests before posting the results.