Sound cards

[Lob]

Hey, I did a search regarding sound cards vs onboard and I am seeing mixed feelings on this. What do you all suggest? Do I need to purchase a card or would onboard sound suffice?

The motherboard that I currently purchased is:

GIGABYTE GA-EP45-DS3R P45

This machine is mostly for gaming so I don't know if I would encounter performance loss or sound degradation from using onboard. I have an Audigy card in my old rig but I don't know if that would be better or worth it to use compared to this onboard.

 

[Blazer7]

The GA-EP45-DS3R features Realtek's 889A HD codec and I know from the guys over at the X48 thread that this is really good for an onboard solution. More to it it supports Dolby Theater and it does not tax the cpu much. I believe that when compared with your Audigy the cpu load must be within 1 or 2% from that. That said I don't think that you should use the Audigy. I would stick with the onboard if I were you as it is quite good and you're likely to experience far fewer issues as with the Audigy. After all it is a kown fact that Creative drivers suck big time. Just my 2c.

 

[Quiksilver]

Depends on speakers IMO. I say if you had a 2.0/2.1/headphones onboard would be fine, but personally anything above that I'd rather have a dedicated sound card. I too share the same sentiments, Creative drivers suck; I mean their latest drivers aren't even WHQL'd.

If you happen to want a dedicated sound card well, I suggest one of these.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16829271003
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16829132005 (requires a floppy 4pin connector for power)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16829156005 (based on X-fi platform but they are writing their own drivers for it rather than relying on creative but still expect bug's.)

 

[tcsenter]

Speakers matter to the extent that if your speakers are just average, then you won't benefit from the best onboard solutions, so why pay even more for a "better" sound card than your speakers are capable of realizing?

Assuming the onboard solution is rather good like the ALC889, the big deciding factor these days is going to be feature support, primarily environmental audio for gaming. Games that are EAX-heavy still benefit from a sound card that can off-load the EAX stuff.

 

[nenforcer]

This is one of the underlooked or underrated parts of a motherboard but it sure does influence my decision making.

I bought an ASUS P5N32-E SLI nForce 680i motherboard a year ago because it features the Analog Devices ADI 1988B HD Audio (Azalia) solution which is suppose to feature better EAX support than any of Realtek's offerings.

They're are a couple of articles out there described how Realtek just emulates the EAX 2.0 audio calls but does not actually process them while the Analog Devices actually does support the EAX hardware calls.

The problem is Windows Vista which features a totally new audio driver architecture so I'm not sure anyones audio in Vista is hardware accelerated.

Even Creative had to write their ALChemy audio API to get hardware acceleration through OpenAL since DirectSound hardware acceleration no longer worked on Vista.

I haven't heard these new Realtek CODECS but they may have gotten more competitive.

 

[The Keeper]

The problem with ADI is that they do not offer drivers themselves. You're stuck with motherboard manufacturer to release new ADI drivers or to use 3rd party download sites. Realtek at least offers drivers on their website and actually updates them regularly.

In Vista the only reliable way to have hardware accelerated sound is to use OpenAL. Alchemy translates EAX/DS3D calls into OpenAL. I've never found good information about how well do onboard codecs support OpenAL or if they support it at all.

 

[Blazer7]

@ Lob,

The quality of sound is often subject to the person and that's because not all of us perceive the quality of sound the same way. That said, and since you already have the mobo, I suggest that you give the onboard a shot. If you don't like it then you can start thinking about getting a new sound card but that comes at a price. A good card will set you back for more than the mobo did.

The ASUS Xonar that Quicksilver suggested is a very good card and makes use of the PCI-E slot. That would be my choice but you should definitely give the onboard a shot first.

I believe that you will find the ALC889 to be quite good and as The Keeper said Realtek releases new drivers very often. I believe that they have the best driver support out there and that should count for something.