ON-board audio

[DevilsAdvocate]

I remember reading an article a while back saying that on-board audion had come a long way.

Which boards, beside the nForce(2) have really great onboard audio?

Thanks!

 

[Atrail]

That article was probably referring to an N'Force 2 motherboard...

 

[Peter]

Chipset alone doesn't make for good sound quality. You need a good codec to go with that, and careful mainboard design in the analog bits and pieces. No generic answer to that.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

OK - which motherboards sport excellent on-board sound?

 

[Atrail]

Besides the N'Force boards, I am not sure.
The onboard on my old Soyo Dragon Plus was decent, 6.1 C-Media sumthin'or nuther...

 

[ShinSa]

I can't believe Creative's major competition now is onboard sound.

 

[Macro2]

You want the nforce2 boards with soundstorm. The Asus A7N8X deluxe has it and a built in amp.
One Abit board has it.

Mac

 

[Vette73]

Also VIA is coming out with a new codec and sound chip. Supposed to be real good, but have to wait and see.


But I am using a 2ch AC97 sound and it does all I need and some.

 

[ghosty]

I got the AOpen AK77 Pro

it has onboard sound.. and it sounds the exact same as any sound card that I have heard.. sound blaster... whatever all that good stuff.. Sounds just the same.

 

[floccus]

Generally the sound quality is dictated by the APU. You can have an nForce2 chipset but if you pare it with a crappy APU then the signal is going to come out as crap and ruin the sound. Integrated audio systems have come a way since system beeps were first integrated, but the fact of the matter is that an add-in card will always be able to produce superior sound. This is due to the fact that space on boards is limited which limits the technologies that get integrated, and that an add-in card is developed specifically and solely for sound, and thus means its more specialized. Its kinda like running a router of using your computer as one. Sure the computer will work well, but the router is streamlined for its purpose and thus will always be superiour.

 

[kursplat]

a good source of info is 3dsoundsurge
good luck

 

[KF]

I think when they say on-board audio has come a long way they mean it doesn't grab a lot of CPU time (to the detriment of games) like on-board sound often did.

I don't recall anybody saying a particular mobo was really geat sounding in comparison to others. (Well, there's the one with a triode.) A lot of people claim this praise of the nForce sound is overdone.

Maybe it's more realistic to say the sound is all that the average person wants. Plus this level of sound is so cheap to add that few manufacturers leave it off any more.