Do you use Onboard sound or a Sound card?

[Bateluer]

Onboard Realtek ALC883. Works fine for my purposes at the moment. My current living situation requires me to use headphones instead of speakers, so I wouldn't see much benefit from a real sound card.

And I since I don't see the point in paying Creative any more money, if I do buy a soundcard, it'll be a Diamond or some other such card.

 

[0roo0roo]

santa cruz works fine for me
other pc has monster sound 3d ghetto old but still works so why not

 

[Smartazz]

Originally posted by: smopoim86
I will get x-fi when i get speakers good enough to tell the difference. for now i'm just using the realtech integrated stuff

I used to have realtech paired with the worst speakers I've ever used in my life and I still could hear the diffrence when I switched to X-Fi, granted I also upgrades to Logitech Z5500's, but it wasn't all sound quality that changed, the sound in my games stopped stuttering.

 

[kyleb]

Audigy 2 ZS, love it.

 

[Ghouler]

Sound storm was my last onboard sound and there is no way back for me.
X-Fi sounds much better. Tried Prey Demo with EAX 5 the other night and, man,
this scared shlt out of me. Very realistic. I do not think any onboard sound comes
close to this.

 

[CalvinHobbs]

i use an audigy coz i was getting lots of statics while converting vhs to dvd on the line-in of the on board sound card

 

[R3MF]

onboard nVidia HD (azalia) audio

 

[R3MF]

Originally posted by: Omizzle
X-fi FTW!

After using Xfi, theres no going back

i'll bear that in mind when they release Linux drivers.

 

[TTTedward]

I used to have Creative sound card since when you using onboard, it takes up lots of CPU usage. Now, I am very interested in C media 8788 sound card. Bluegears said that they will release by the end of August or the early next month. http://www.bluegears.com/b-Enspirer.html

I will test it and let you guys know.

 

[eplebnista]

Originally posted by: KoolDrew
Onboard Sound

 

[stevty2889]

I am using an M-Audio revo with my X2 system, just because the onboard sound doesn't sound so great with my 5.1 speakers. For the rest of my systems, I just use the onboard sound.

 

[Dravic]

I curently use the X-Fi XtremeMusic

on board sound has gotten pretty good, and many even support EAX2. But there always seems to be a couple games that come out and dont sound right using their EAX implementation, or that the game doesnt recognize as hardware accelerated audio.

 

[Sforsyth]

I used on-noard sound but in games like BF2 and CS:S it was stuttering bad so I put in a PCI sound card and it helped.

 

[xtknight]

I went from onboard TI SoundMAX on a P4P800 Deluxe to an Audigy 2 ZS and the difference was staggering. The onboard sound on my A8N-SLI Deluxe isn't too bad, but the Audigy is still an easy winner IMO. Have you ever tried an Audigy? If not you won't know what you're missing.

 

[oynaz]

I make a bit of music, so onboard is simply not good enough for me.

 

[Barfo]

Audigy 2ZS here.

 

[cr2250]

I thought soundcards were a waste of money, but then I decided to try it and there is a huge difference in sound. If you have 5.1 or higher speakers get a sound card. Now I can tell where bullets are coming from in games like cs or bf2.

 

[theMan]

i have onboard sound. why listen to music when i can just walk ten feet, turn on my 8000 dollar sound system and listen to music? and the sound in games is low quality anyway, and i have crappy computer speakers. why bother?

 

[Cloud Strife]

A2ZS, no onboard sound on my Intel motherboard.

 

[cr2250]

Audigy 2zs since onboard will always suck

 

[Lord Evermore]

I voted for onboard, but now I'm not using it. Prompted by the people who are so vehemently against onboard sound, I decided to compare the onboard Realtek 883 on my K9N Platinum with my older Santa Cruz card.

As far as audio quality, I can't really be sure what the difference is. I have a bit of a tin ear, and the only thing I listen to is Windows sounds, occasional MP3s, video clips, and web page audio, so nothing but stereo, on my old SoundWorks speakers. It does seem slightly "deeper", like the sound is spread over a wider range sort of, so there's a little more detail apparently. Of course I don't know how much of a difference really quality speakers would make, or how it would sound in games.

The CPU usage surprised me. I thought the 883 was pretty good with only 3% CPU usage while playing MP3s, occasionally spiking at 9%, but the Santa Cruz is such low usage that it doesn't even register most of the time, only occasionally does the CPU usage show up at 1 to 3%. Using AMD's Power Monitor I can see that it's actually causing occasional 7% usage on a single core (2.48GHz X2).

Neither of those are something I'd spend another 100 to 150 dollars to get. Even 50 more would be a bit of a stretch for somebody who's trying to keep within a budget. Onboard quality is good enough that it comes down to the usual diminishing returns issue, whether the slightly better quality is worth a higher and higher price for each step in quality, which is an individual decision.

Of course the mainboard has optical SP/DIF output, which would be nice if I had anything to receive it with. The Santa Cruz supports 64 hardware voices too. I can't find out whether the 883 does anything in hardware.

 

[oynaz]

@ theman

Why not hook up your computer to your $8000 sound system?

 

[michal1980]

i use both 2zs for audio/sound effects. and onboard for teamspeak. its a thing of beaty.

 

[SonicIce]

AV-710 owners unite!

 

[WraithETC]

X-fi FTW! Onboard is fine but if you really like to listen to music or play games in surround sound theres no competition. Also if you game it really helps get rid of small stuttering since your CPU is freed up from its previous sound task.