Onboard sound vs Audigy 2 ZS?

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Putz

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got this Audigy 2 ZS PCI from a system pull today, currently im using the onboard 7.1 xfi on my Asus rampage x48 (ddr2 model)

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/1444/asus_rampage_formula_x48_motherboard/index.html

don't let the pic fool you the sound is infact on board, the pcie board is just a breakout

Im thinking for 2.1 i might as well use it, if nothing else to take the load off the cpu?

Hopefully i wouldn't need gig of bloatware software like my xfi titanium had :/

board specs here
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=MyJtSWUgzptSqKFN&templete=2

SupremeFX II Audio Card
ADI 1988B 8 -Channel High Definition Audio CODEC
Coaxial / Optical S/PDIF out ports at back I/O
 
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from the review,

"Lastly on our list is the SupremeFX II audio module. While some may be thinking you are getting a dedicated sound card, sorry to disappoint you. This card is simply a break-out daughter board with a Realtek HD audio controller chip on it. It still uses the Azalia HD audio built into the ICH9R Southbridge, it’s just that it’s placed on a daughter board instead. ASUS claims that this helps reduce noise on the audio channel, but after playing games using SupremeFX II compared to other HD audio built onboard, there was no noticeable difference on our 7.1 speaker setup. Still, a nice touch, as if you want to use a separate audio card, you take out the SupremeFX II audio card and you can still use the audio slot as a PCI-E x1 expansion slot for a Creative X-Fi audio card or some such."

if it helps, downloading them drivers too, lol ty
 
I tried the onboard FXII riser card on my Rampage Formula and the Audigy2. Ended up going with an Auzentech Forte. Audigy2 was better than the onboard FXII, the Forte beats the old Audigy2 hands down as far as I am concerned. If you ever consider spending money on a sound card checkout the Forte, for free though the Audigy2 is better than onboard. I used my Audigy2 for about 6 years and my ears tell me upgrading to the Forte is well worth the sale price of $80 plus S/H it can be had for on sale.
 
plan to go to the azuentech at some point but being this was free i figured it would do for now and the FXII riser always seemed to make a light hiss when i had no audio going, also the front panel is terrible static no matter how i route the cable

and it does sound better, seems to be much louder/crisper without having to turn the receiver up nearly as much (i leave windows volume @ 100% and use the receiver to adjust)
 
it'll only take the load off the CPU "where available" (various reviews have shown ~few FPS benefits to Audigy 2/X-Fi (generally Audigy 2 to X-Fi won't net you any performance, nowhere near as dramatic as vs onboard) over onboard)
 
obobski said:
it'll only take the load off the CPU "where available" (various reviews have shown ~few FPS benefits to Audigy 2/X-Fi (generally Audigy 2 to X-Fi won't net you any performance, nowhere near as dramatic as vs onboard) over onboard)
Click to expand...

That largely depends on the operating system and games being tested.

If your games use OpenAL, than any card that supports it *and* uses hardware audio acceleration (any Audigy or above except the SE and X-Fi XtremeAudio) will lower the burden on the CPU, regardless of what flavor of Windows you use. The fly in the potion is EAX (specifically, older games that have *not* been patched to use OpenAL instead of EAX) and has to do with a change made by Microsoft in the Windows audio stack forward of XP (this applies to Vista/Windows Server 2003 R2 and 7/Server 2008) which took away direct hardware calls from the stack. You have two choices: do without hardware acceleration (which some games still force you to do, as they have not been patched to use OpenAL instead of EAX) or use an EAX-to-OpenAL call translator (such as Creative's own ALchemy, which is available for any owner of the Audigy and newer sound cards as a free download/update from Creative's website and support page).

I didn't buy the X-Fi when I did because of this issue (I had, in fact, crossgraded from the Audigy 2 ZS Gamer, so I was unaffected), but because of better audio performance *outside* of games (specifically, listening to MP3s).
 
a dedicated soundcard is almost always better than onboard. the riser cards that you get with some asus mobos (or other mobos too) is not considered a dedicated sound card. even if they say "x-fi", it's not true x-fi hardware i think, it's just emulated software.
 
my pk5 deluxe has the same ADI AD1988B sound chip (without the breakout box). the was good but not as good as the aud 2zs. once i put the aud 2zs i could tell a difference in sound quality. i'm not sure if there was any performance gains but the sound was better with the aud 2zs.
 
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