Steps.
- Don't buy a DAC to gaming, sadly 95% of DAC will increase your audio latency, so pluging directly into your motherboard will be always better.
- That's why you should always buy a good motherboard, new motherboards are coming with Amp and so many things.
- Any USB device is shit, so if you're gaming with USB Headphones and prefer equalization over latency that's sad (That's why you buy a good headphone with good frequencies response)
- Ranking is Motherboard >>> A good PCIE or PCI Card (Only expensives ones don't increase any latency) >>> Thunderbolt >>> USB 3.0 (pls a DAC 3.0) >>> USB 2.0
I did some latency tests but only with P2 (motherboard), FiiO DAC, USB 3.0 and USB 2.0
IN VALORANT
P2 Latency: 170ms (FPS CAP 300)
Fiio E10K: 210ms (FPS CAP 300)
Tascam HR 2x2 (Audio Interface)+ 256 buffer: 225ms (FPS CAP 300), If I use buffer to 4 samples I got 205ms but somehow It affected my FPS?
USB 3.0: 230ms (FPS CAP 300)
USB 2.0: 285ms +- (FPS CAP 300)
Your FPS in-gaming will influence your audio latency btw.
Realtek drivers will always increase latency over 10-25ms in my tests, so I really recommend to stay with Windows driver if you prefer but It's acceptable worth 25ms if you prefer to use EQ settings, etc.
CSGO had a option to change audio buffer called "snd_mixahead" it lower your audio latency but will affect your FPS because your CPU will need to handle audio more faster (back in days where people had 2-4cores it affected really hard)