>>106252727
finished new build. thanks anons for all the help through the process. everything's running great.

I typed up a long post and lost it all, so here's the shorter version: New mobo has ALC4080 audio codec, and I can tell the audio has changed for some reason from my old build which had ALC897. little more boxy? little more compressed? little more latency? I play music so (I think) have a reasonably good ear.

some things I might get used to or get over, but one that's really annoying is a consistent crackle any time I run a program and windows prompts to confirm running. this is just one I've noticed so far. I noticed some mentioned this might be bypassed using optical output, but the crackle happens on both optical and aux outputs. any solutions or am I just fucked? would an audio card really help? is this some kind of shielding/electrical issue maybe? my speakers don't have any hum