Which is a better soundcard?

[Pokey007]

I just put together a new computer for a friend and I'm curious to know which is the better soundcard to use. A Creative Labs Soundblaster live or a Realtek ALC650 onboard his Shuttle AN35N-Ultra?

Thanks!

 

[swank121]

The AN35N uses the nForce2 chipset if I'm not mistaken which has excellent onboard audio. Even though it isn't a SoundStorm branded board (SoundStorm simply means the board meets nVidia's qualifications for audio connectors and codec quality), it would still beat a Soundblaster Live any day. If the board is built well it may even beat an Audigy. Stick with the onboard sound.

As an aside, the audio processing is actually handled by the nForce2 chipset. The ALC650 only does the digital-to-analog conversion that provides the final signal to the speakers. If you look on the Live! card there will be a separate codec chip for this purpose as well apart from the (much) bigger audio processor.

 

[Dnana]

Can somebody answer this question in the coontext of using Dragon Naturallyspeaking voice actiated software? I'd like to know what is the best soundcard or if I need one at all.

 

[swank121]

For Dragon Naturally Speaking you only need a microphone-in port and some type of sound device that can record at 16-bit. Any modern motherboard can handle that. A dedicated soundcard would provide no benefit, the processing is done solely by your CPU.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: swank121
The AN35N uses the nForce2 chipset if I'm not mistaken which has excellent onboard audio. Even though it isn't a SoundStorm branded board (SoundStorm simply means the board meets nVidia's qualifications for audio connectors and codec quality), it would still beat a Soundblaster Live any day. If the board is built well it may even beat an Audigy. Stick with the onboard sound.

As an aside, the audio processing is actually handled by the nForce2 chipset. The ALC650 only does the digital-to-analog conversion that provides the final signal to the speakers. If you look on the Live! card there will be a separate codec chip for this purpose as well apart from the (much) bigger audio processor.

Not this one. The AN35N-Ultra doesn't appear to use the MCP-T chipset, so it lacks nVidia's Audio Processing Unit entirely.

 

[swank121]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Not this one. The AN35N-Ultra doesn't appear to use the MCP-T chipset, so it lacks nVidia's Audio Processing Unit entirely.

My mistake. The original nForce MCP had the APU .. I figured it would be in the nForce2's MCP as well. Go figure. Even without the APU, I don't think you will get better sound from the Live! I had that card and it was total crap. But it would take the sound processing load off your CPU, if you want 3~4 extra FPS in your games.

 

[Bovinicus]

The SB Live! most likely sound better than that onboard audio. The Live! isn't the best sounding card around, but it beats out even newer onboard audio in terms of sound quality, I think. As well, there will be a slight performance boost as the previous poster mentioned.

Unfortunately, sound quality is largely subjective. If you can get ahold of the sound card, then I suggest you try both. See which the user prefers.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

ALC650 is just the codec,
SB Live also has codec, integrated inside the EMU2K chip.

SB Live is more than 4 years old technology, boring.