Realtek Audio Alc1220 Vb Codec (es9018q2c Chip) Free
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Contemporary onboard audio - ALC1220, expanded 'supported formats', etc.
Realtek Audio Alc1220 Vb Codec (es9018q2c Chip) Windows 10
So what is a poor CODEC or motherboard manufacturer to do to differentiate their high end products these days?
It's actually a bit difficult to tell what Realtek even claims their new CODEC products are capable of, because no publicly available data sheet appears to exist for their most current products. This makes some sense because the public is not their customer; the board makers are.
I have been curious as to what novel, exciting, and totally unnecessary features the ALC1220 (the current 'high end' Realtek CODEC) might be technically capable of supporting. Conveniently, it was time to update my main desktop system, and AMDs Ryzen 7 CPUs can now be found for less than $300 in retail. This being the case, I've acquired a Gigabyte X370 'Aorus gaming K5 motherboard' which features the ALC1220 with fancypants nichicon 'gold audio' capacitors in the audio stage. And das kolorful blinkenlights, for some reason.
First impressions:
-In the audio driver app., resolutions up to and including 32bit/192 KHz are supported by the CODEC. Laughable. Seems pointless without 384KHz sampling
-Motherboard product literature claims that (the IC maker doesn't even list the chip on their site yet) the main stereo DAC of the ALC1220 has a 120dB SNR. Quite impressive if true; these CODEC chips are definitely not particularly expensive.
-__ing DSD has now officially penetrated the onboard audio CODEC IC industry! Motherboard claims 'support for DSD128 hardware decode'. Oy vey. I wonder if this means software and supporting hardware will play the SACD layer of hybrid discs; more likely this is referring to just the data type. This means SACD rips could theoretically be supported. At long last.
-Tweaktown's review of this motherboard performed an RMAA loopback test (likely limited by the CODEC ADC) and found a dynamic range (A) of 108dB, with
THD at a shocking 0.0034% and IMD@10kHz being 0.004%. Initial listening (Paradigm mini monitor/NAD high current amp system) finds output quality to be totally indistinguishable from my Asus Xonar sound card with 16 and 24 bit FLAC audio samples. Shocking, truly. In the future I'd like to run RMAA at multiple sampling rates, with the Xonar capturing the motherboard output rather than a loopback. It may be that the Xonar ADC is better than that of the ALC1220 and could provide a clearer picture of what the DAC end of the ALC1220 is capable of.
Essentially any competent implementation of this (or nearly any current) CODEC should be absolutely excellent if the Aorus X370 K5 is representative.
-Other notes:
This particular board has a feature Gigabyte calls 'DAC-UP' - two of the USB ports (one front, one rear) are capable of being overvolted by up to 0.3V DC in order to provide more power to external DAC/headphone solutions. Hard to imagine why you'd bother with an external solution with this board, perhaps 600 ohm headphones.
I forgot how nice Gigabyte boards are - they include a little plastic adapter to plug the LED/power/reset leads into so you have one big plug to attach to the board. Why everyone doesn't do this is beyond me.
The Ryzen 7 is really quite an unreasonable CPU - the six core/12 thread chips are a bit more sane. I'm rather irritated with AMD for making a chip like this, because I don't know how to utilize all of its resources. On some occasions I've maxed out quad core systems but that's just not going to happen here. Happily the chip is extremely energy efficient, and the Threadripper CPUs exist exist, helping to make me feel somewhat less ridiculous.
Edit: for any system builders, my board shipped with the 'F3' BIOS and works flawlessly with EVGA 'SuperSC' DDR4 at the advertised 3000/cas 15 (2x8GB).
Realtek Audio Alc1220 Vb Codec (es9018q2c Chip) Software
The driver is for Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and Windows 10 32/64BIt Operating System. MEG x570 Unify motherboard with Realtek ALC1220 Codec. Audio codec is a small chip measuring 0.25 x 0.25 inches 7 x 7 mm located on the motherboard in charge of the analog audio functions. Hp compaq nc6400. Besides, they will get a 7.1-channel Realtek ALC1220 audio. This guide contains instructions on how to get audio working on a CoffeeLake/KabyLake/SkyLake hackintosh, aswell as older motherboard chipsets. This guide covers the new ALC1220 codec, as well as other codecs such as ALC1150, 892, 887, and the ASUS S1220A. If you followed one of our audio should already be working for you and you don’t need to follow this guide. This guide uses the AppleALC.
Realtek Audio Alc1220 Vb Codec (es9018q2c Chip) 6.0
'A new change for ASUS is the inclusion of the DAC and amp on the back of the motherboard. Previously, the fancy audio equipment only worked on the front audio header. So if you plugged your high ohm audiophile headphones into the back, you’d have a bad time.Now, the killer ESS Sabre DAC (and amp) powers both the front and back jacks.' nextpage title=”Introduction” Audio codec is a small chip measuring 0.25 x 0.25 inches (7 x 7 mm) located on the motherboard in charge of the analog audio functions.