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RE: Different Experience with Core i3-530 + GA-H55M-UD2H

After cics reported dull veiled sound with his Core i3 combo, I performed some listen test (again) bewteen my "GA-H55M-UD2H+Core i3-530 32nm+Kingston Value Ram DDR3-1333 1GB" and "GA-G31M-S2C+E7500+ADATA Vitesta Extreme Edition1GB". I have learned and benifited a lot from cics' contribution as well as this forum, therefore I feel obliged to share my findings and experience here.

Test Conditions

Bypass capactors were added to almost each and every Cap. underneath both MBs(this offerred good SQ improvement). I am using a DIY USB DAC (battery drived) and there is no issue with PCI interface. The same HDD and PS (a 90W pico ATX ps and a pure battery + regulator power supply) were used for the listening tests. The rest of the system is all DIY. Bios setting on the MBs are similar to those used cics. The Windows XP Pro SP2 is fully optimized as per the instruction on this Homepage.

Results

After listening to the two MB combos for a few times, a couple of friends and myself unequivocally considered that the Core i3 530 combo sounded better all round. With the Core i3, the imaging is better and the sound stage is deeper and more three dimensional. The piano and vocal sounded more natural and real, highs are more detailed and lows are more clear and authoritative. There are more ambience Power consumtion appeared lower by a margin as reflected by the temperature of the power supplies.

I don't know what is the cause of the difference in SQ between my combo and that of cics, perhap I didn't use any PCI slot, but according I what I've heard in the tests, the Core i3 combo does sound better than the G31+E7500. The diffence is more than marginal, I feel like listen to two systems, one with good sound quality and the other very good.

One thing I experienced with the Core i3 combo is that it has better rejection to poor power supply quality, perhaps due its sophisticated onboard swithcihng supply circuit and a lots of Oscon capacitors on the MB. When I first fire it up, no bypass capacitors were added to the MB but it already out did the G31+E7500 combo. However, when battery power was suppled to the two MB combos, there is more improvement with the SQ of the G31+7500 than the Core i3, although the latter still won.

Hope someone can do more tests on the Core i3 and other MB.

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