Comparison of integrated audio solutions & choice of Z77 mobo

[Kaotik]

I didn't find any reviews comparing different integrated audio solutions, so user experiences are the only options really.

I'm looking for Z77-motherboard with 130-160€ budget, and 3 candinates so far popped up.

Asrock Z77 Extreme4-M - mATX has enough slots for me, Asrock has had a lot of satisfied users last couple years.
Gigabyte Z77 UD3H - Someone recommended it to be solid board and should receive BIOS updates steadily
Gigabyte G1.Sniper 3M - mATX has enough slots for me, the integrated audio caught my eye (but don't really know crap about it)

Of course, if you know any better mobos in the same price range, feel free to recommend

The audio solutions:
Asrock: Realtek ALC898 - I've had no problems with my ALC888, though of course 898 is different - I doubt it's any worse, though?
UD3H: VIA VT2021 - Never heard of it, how does this compare?
G1.Sniper 3M: Creative CA0113 (same as Recon3D) - sounds "too good to be integrated", but apparently it's really mostly software codec (even in the Recon3D cards), rather than hardware like X-Fi's are

I doubt there's any mobos out there with real X-Fi audio? I know ASUS for example has their SupremeFX III on Gene V, but it's apparently Realtek chip + Creative software

 

[Albuquerque]

I'm using an MSI Z77-G45 mATX board for the unlikely combination of HTPC and Microsoft Server 2008R2 Hyper-V host. I have a thread over in the Purchase Decisions forum talking about harddrive selection where you can see some specs and pics - to include some power consumption figures. It has since picked up a slightly bigger power appetite after the addition of an AMD Radeon 7750 for better TV support.

It runs a multitude of VM's underneath, but the "front end" is an autologin to a restricted-rights account that allows my wife and/or guests to use it for Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, Slacker, di.FM, and to access the plethora of music, movies, TV shows and pictures we have stored on my Windows Home Server 2011 instance (one of the virtual guests inside the Hyper-V host.) I have found the audio to quite sufficient for my needs, keeping in mind that I may not be quite the audio snob that some others are It uses the Realtek ALC892 8-channel, "THX TruStudio PRO" audio chipset that connects to a pair of ancient Sony tower speakers, a Sony two-channel amp, and a Sony active sub, I actually don't have that much love for Sony, it all just happened to be the right price at the right time.

Not sure if this helps you or not, just thought I'd offer another board suggestion.

 

[Vadi]

Didn't you mean ACL 889? I got that and it is superb. It comes with Dolby software, digital live is possible to. You can play back two independent analogue streams at once, and you can reassign any analogue jack to be either input or output as you wish. I never tried many mics though. I've been pleased with Realtek soundcodecs for some time now and wouldn't buy a mainboard without one.
Forget the X-Fi, the newer Realteks are just as good, unless the mainboard layout gives you noise. The X-Fi chip is the fastest ever made, but without drivers it is useless, and again, the DACs are nothing special anymore. I can turn up 128 voices in Diablo3 too, nowadays everything is software anyway.

 

[Kaotik]

Didn't you mean ACL 889? I got that and it is superb. It comes with Dolby software, digital live is possible to. You can play back two independent analogue streams at once, and you can reassign any analogue jack to be either input or output as you wish. I never tried many mics though. I've been pleased with Realtek soundcodecs for some time now and wouldn't buy a mainboard without one.
Forget the X-Fi, the newer Realteks are just as good, unless the mainboard layout gives you noise. The X-Fi chip is the fastest ever made, but without drivers it is useless, and again, the DACs are nothing special anymore. I can turn up 128 voices in Diablo3 too, nowadays everything is software anyway.

No I mean 898, and yes it looks like I'm going with the Asrock.
According to it's datasheet, it has these features
Dolby® PCEE program™ (optional software feature)
DTS® CONNECT™ (optional software feature)
SRS® TrueSurround HD (optional software feature)
Fortemedia® SAM™ technology for voice processing (Beam Forming and Acoustic Echo
Cancellation) (optional software feature)
Creative® Host Audio program (optional software feature)

The Creative one is indeed same as Recon3D cards have, the name was CA0132 and not 0113 like I typed, 0113 is the bus controller on the Recon3D cards, and looks like it's based on the lower end chip 0110 or something along those lines, and is "pure software codec" instead of hardware like X-Fi Titaniums have.
No-one had any experiences with the VIA, so I didn't want to take the risk.

 

[Vadi]

The microphone noise cancellation works nice here, gets rid of any 50Hz ground loops. If you got a stereo mic you can also use those other features.
Also if you're using analogue output or your receiver takes it, you can set the default sampling rate to 96kHz 24bit or even 192kHz to reduce resampling errors from different sound sources, I think. At least quality went noticeably up going to 96kHz.
On the older ALC888 above 96kHz effects like headphone virtualization didn't work though. No problem on the ALC889 with the Dolby software.