Onboard sound, c-media or alc650 ?

[CarpetMan]

From most reviews I have read the onboard sound on the KT333 M/Bs is pretty good. And for my use it will probably do. Is there enough difference in sound quality between the c-media and the alc-650 to make it a factor when choosing a new M/B? Or are they pretty close in sound quality? Thanks in advance for any input I receive.

 

[Boonesmi]

i dont really notice much difference in sound quality

 

[Vette73]

I have never used the alc650, but the C-Media is a great sound chip. The newwest 639 drivers have made the sound quality REALLY GOOD.

So if anybody has the C-Media sound, get the newwest drivers

 

[CarpetMan]

Thanks for the words of wisdom. Now if I can just decide on a M/B.
Will the new c-media drivers work on my kk-266 with c-media sound? Which by the way I have been happy with.

 

[Vette73]

If you have the 8738 chip then it should. The C-Media chip I have is on my Dual AMD CPU Asus board.

Go to windowsupdate.com

If you are running Win 2000 or XP it should be there, don't know about Win 9X though.

It should have 639 as the last numbers in the driver. Also seemed to fix the IRQ_LESS_THAN_EQUAL problem I was having.

 

[Peter]

There is no "THE" C-Media. Their 8738 are PCI audio chips, the benefit being that they have at least some brain of their own, producing not too much CPU load. However they do use quite an amount of PCI bandwidth, which doesn't make everyone happy.

"Chipset audio plus codec" solutions, using C-Media 973x or Realtek ALC650 for six channels, are off the PCI bus, on the fast chipset internal bus. With KT333 and 8233/A/C or 8235 south bridges, the chipset integrated audio engine also isn't as brainless and CPU driven as public perception suggests.

Analog audio in/out quality however is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with that choice. This is all about how much care has been taken during mainboard design. It's easier with separated codecs on an AC97 bus, since they can be placed in an isolated area away from all the high speed busses and in close proximity to the audio connectors, while a PCI audio chip always has to connect at least to the PCI bus obviously.

regards, Peter

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

Ok - between the Realtek ALC650 and the C-Media 9739... which one is the better of the two?

 

[Peter]

The 9739 codec has some neat gadgetry regarding 3D audio on lesser speaker setups. Apart from that it's a give and take, not much difference.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

OK - I was just trying my level best to decide. What kind of 3D gadgetry does the c-media chip have? linky?

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Marlin1975
I have never used the alc650, but the C-Media is a great sound chip. The newwest 639 drivers have made the sound quality REALLY GOOD.

So if anybody has the C-Media sound, get the newwest drivers

Wow, they actually updated them??? Amazing. It's been the same drivers for like a year at their site. I left my onboard Cmedia behind (8738 chip on the Shuttle AK35GTR) because of the static - I tried all the fixes out there, but I still got static when there was lots of audio action going on. I'm using a different board now, but I do still have the AK35GTR - I'll give the new drivers a shot. Thanks for the heads up.
Sorry if that didn't exactly answer your questions, CarpetMan.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: Marlin1975
I have never used the alc650, but the C-Media is a great sound chip. The newwest 639 drivers have made the sound quality REALLY GOOD.

So if anybody has the C-Media sound, get the newwest drivers

Wow, they actually updated them??? Amazing. It's been the same drivers for like a year at their site. I left my onboard Cmedia behind (8738 chip on the Shuttle AK35GTR) because of the static - I tried all the fixes out there, but I still got static when there was lots of audio action going on. I'm using a different board now, but I do still have the AK35GTR - I'll give the new drivers a shot. Thanks for the heads up.
Sorry if that didn't exactly answer your questions, CarpetMan.

You have to use Windowsupdate.com to get the new drivers, and it might be for Win 2000/XP only. But I also had a AK35GTR board. 2 things to fix the problem you are having, I know I had the same problem.
1. Get the newwest BIOS and 4in1's
2. Get the 639 driver

Thats all I did and it worked great. I now have a 760MPX chipset with the same chip and it works great, no static or sound problems.

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: DevilsAdvocate
OK - I was just trying my level best to decide. What kind of 3D gadgetry does the c-media chip have? linky?

Much to everyone's surprise www.cmedia.com.tw ...

 

[Kingofcomputer]

alc650 is just a codec, a partner for the motherboard chipset's built-in sound controller.
motherboard with cmi8738 is better, cmi8738 is a complete audio controller chip with built-in codec.

 

[Peter]

... which isn't necessarily better. Being on the PCI bus does have disadvantages, both in system load and potentially on the audio signal quality as well. See above.

 

[CarpetMan]

Looks like it is 6 of one and half dozen of the other. I guess just pick a board I like and whichever sound chip it has will be fine. I still don't know which is better,but at least I'm better informed.