New PC build audio is super quiet

I recently built a new PC and the audio is significantly quieter. for context i have an external volume control knob, on the old PC with the system volume at 50% id need to control knob at about 50% for comfortable audio. On the new PC with system volume at 100% i need the control knob at probably 80-90% for the same volume, which leaves me no room for adjusting quiet applications up. Im currently using Equalizer APO with a preamplification gain at 13dB to make it louder but it makes the audio quality drop terribly and act weird... like sometimes it distorts audio and other times it blasts it crazy loud seemingly at random.

What options do i have to make the audio louder without destroying the audio quality?

This is the new PC build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/p234kf

This is the old PC build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/kVBHkd