Sound Card vs Onboard

[burnin_vernon]

How big a difference is there? I currently have Realtek HD Audio onboard sound. I have my pc connected to my amp (with 3.5mm stereo plug to 2 RCAs) and listen to music this way. I also listen to the occasional movie through my PC.

It would be nice to get rid of all that 3.5mm cable but I'm not sure if that's reason to spend the money on a card.

[Nage Waza]

go with a card, get a vid card as well.

[PsYcNeT]

Problem nowadays is, there are almost no sound cards available on the market. Creative experienced a huge backlash this year, and their sales have plummeted, causing them to slash all their lines and only have lousy sub-150$ cards, and decent front-panel based +200$ ones.

The rest of the market has fallen by the wayside as well. Most modern motherboards have terribly good onboard sound, and most have coaxial and optical ports as well.

Unless you are recording, or need something that does true 5.1/6.1 DTS out, I'd stick with the mobo.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Problem nowadays is, there are almost no sound cards available on the market. Creative experienced a huge backlash this year, and their sales have plummeted, causing them to slash all their lines and only have lousy sub-150$ cards, and decent front-panel based +200$ ones.

Because the built in sound-cards have become so good that there is no point having a pro-sumer market for them.

If you want a kick-ass sound from your computer, go to Long & McQuade and get an "Audio Interface" even if you never use it to record. The algorithms and D/A converters are far superior to any built-in card, and movies and music will simply "sound better." Also, it would then be worth it to purchase serious kick-ass speakers and amp. You would be able to hear a huge difference.

Also, everything would be 1/4" and RCA. No stereo-mini.

[ken0042]

Put me in the sound from the onboard card camp as well.

The big thing for me- if I'm looking for high end sound then I'm watching a DVD/Blu ray or listening to a CD. The fact that many people have 128 kbps MP3s tells me that the days of the audiofile are nearing their end. And I still think you will get better sound listening to a 320 kbps MP3 with an onboard card than any PCI card playing a 128 kbps MP3.

Plus, the OP mentions his #1 issue is the type of cable he is using, not the sound quality. To me that is a telling tale right there.

If you are "somehow" downloading DVD quality movies complete with 5.1 audio, and want to hear that 5.1 audio, then you need to determine where you want to spend your money; is it better to buy that $200 sound card, or just put a $40 DVD player along with your 5.1 audio system and burn movies to DVD. The advantage to burning them on the spot is you can also free up a lot of hard drive space by not keeping 4 GB files kicking around.

[Bobblehead]

Many newer motherboards include 5.1 or 7.1 anyways.

The only reason to buy a separate card is if you really want some of the special "EAX" affects, and they are only available on Creative cards anyways.

I have a sound card, but on my next system (which, if I can't fix last night's "can no longer POST" issus, may be sooner than later) I won't bother.

[Raekwon]

I had realtek HD onboard audio and decided to switch to a SB X-Fi Fatality edition. Picked it up for $75 from their website refurbished. I find that the only real difference is in the EAX for games. Onboard sound just doesn't match up but it does a real good job these days. If its just for music and movies than stick with the onboard. If its for games and you have high quality surround speakers then get the dedicated sound card.

[burnin_vernon]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Plus, the OP mentions his #1 issue is the type of cable he is using, not the sound quality. To me that is a telling tale right there.

If you are "somehow" downloading DVD quality movies complete with 5.1 audio, and want to hear that 5.1 audio, then you need to determine where you want to spend your money; is it better to buy that $200 sound card, or just put a $40 DVD player along with your 5.1 audio system and burn movies to DVD. The advantage to burning them on the spot is you can also free up a lot of hard drive space by not keeping 4 GB files kicking around.

Definitely not my #1 issue, but a plus.

I actually have a blu-ray player for watching most movies but my pc is part of my living room set-up. When I have UFC parties here, everybody likes to play stuff on youtube or whatever and I put it through the TV. I definitely don't need quality sound for that but I do listen to all my music this way.

If I won't notice a big difference in sound quality for music (which seems to be the consensus) it is probably pointless.

[photon]

Other aspects of the issue include driver quality and CPU usage.

It used to be that Creative had good drivers and onboard had crappy ones.. now everyone seems to have crappy ones.

Separate add-in sound cards can save CPU cycles as well, though you have to get the right ones. Important if frame rates in games are the #1 factor for you.

This is the card I think I will get for my current computer: http://www.memoryexpress.com/Product...22953(ME).aspx

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by photon

Other aspects of the issue include driver quality and CPU usage.

It used to be that Creative had good drivers and onboard had crappy ones.. now everyone seems to have crappy ones.

Separate add-in sound cards can save CPU cycles as well, though you have to get the right ones. Important if frame rates in games are the #1 factor for you.

This is the card I think I will get for my current computer: http://www.memoryexpress.com/Product...22953(ME).aspx

CPU usage is debatable. It's my understanding that DirectX 10 sound processing is entirely software driven. This is one of the reasons Creative's cards gained such a lousy reputation under Vista - there's nothing really for them to do. There are other sound API's out there too, like OpenAL, but I don't know if they have much traction in mainstream gaming.

[PsYcNeT]

Well Creative got completely fubared earlier last year when they banned and removed third-party drivers from their forums made for Vista. The community was not happy, and the fact that Creative only has 4 cards left in production reflects that.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Well Creative got completely fubared earlier last year when they banned and removed third-party drivers from their forums made for Vista. The community was not happy, and the fact that Creative only has 4 cards left in production reflects that.

Oh, there's more to it than that. Creative was set to launch a new line of cards to for Vista, claiming that the more advanced features on the existing cards could not be made to work in Vista. It turns out Creative simply didn't want to enable the features in the drivers, since they'd prefer you to buy a new card. Then the hacked drivers came out, Creative forced them to be pulled (in fact I think they threw lawyers at the issue), etc, etc.

[PsYcNeT]

Yeah I got the Coles Notes from a buddy.

It's a shame too, because I was in the market for a new soundcard the other month (I'm using an X-Fi XtremeGamer right now) because my current was only a rear panel, and I wanted a front panel. Lo an behold, the front panels on the market from any brand that isn't sold in music/recording shops do not have the full gamut of input/outputs that the old cards did (X-Fi platinum, Augidy 4 SE etc).

I was truly disappointed.

[photon]

Yeah, that whole driver fiasco is partially what put me on to AuzenTech (plus Creative's drivers are crap regardless).

But with AuzenTech's X-Fi cards they were just using the Creative drivers anyway. They said they'd start writing their own but I don't know if they've done that yet.

[llama64]

Any recent motherboard that supports a Core2Duo processor likely has a HD Realtek sound card built in to it. The recent Azalia chip line is actually a very nice piece of hardware. If you have a Core2Duo, using the built in sound card is just as good as using a "gaming" grade sound card. The new processors are more then capable of handling the sound load now -- rendering most slot cards redundant.

That said, if you are doing professional audio rendering, you need a professional sound card. Though even that is being considered pointless since the software can handle everything that hardware used to be able to do.

[photon]

For pro stuff it's more the quality of the components than the ability of the software; signal to noise ratio of the op-amps and stuff like that to get the sound in and out.

[Bobblehead]

I system went kaput last week. I didn't bother to switch the sound card (although I'm still trying to figure out the quirks of the onboard card - it seems to only want to output stereo through the digital connections; I want my 5.1).