GoKawiil
Tech News
Modern Windows, Mac and Linux PCs now handle audio processing through integrated motherboard chips, commonly Realtek components, rather than separate sound cards. High-quality lossless audio, including 24-bit/192kHz Dolby Atmos streams, can be transmitted over USB 3.x, DisplayPort, Wi-Fi or HDMI without the bandwidth constraints that once necessitated dedicated hardware.
YouTuber EastMakes repurposed a 15-year-old HP ProLiant N40L micro-server by designing a custom motherboard around a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5. Starting from the open-source Raspberry Pi I/O board schematics, he reshaped the PCB to fit the server's original chassis, added an NVMe slot, USB 3.0 ports, and Ethernet, while trimming down to a single HDMI output.
USB 3.0's successors were renamed using confusing 'Gen' labels tied to speeds of 5, 10 or 20 Gbps, making printed USB 3.2 labels unreliable indicators of actual performance. USB-C ports add convenience but say nothing about speed, since USB-C devices can still run at USB 2.0 rates. Real-world tests, like Kingston's DataTraveler Max hitting up to 1,000 MB/s versus Samsung's Fit Plus write speeds of just 58.4 MB/s, show huge gaps hidden behind similar branding.