Anyone else miss being able to get a motherboard with no onboard audio?

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D1RTYD1Z619

Limp Gawd
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Aug 11, 2012
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I used to only buy motherboards without onboard vid/audio because I always used a sound card and always had a video card installed(like a man is supposed to). I wish some of the "high end" motherboards were made like that. Anyone else feel the same?
 
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No. Having no onboard sound these days makes little to no sense:
They don't add that much to the cost of motherboards
They don't take up any noticeable amount of resources
They serve as a backup in case your dedicated sound card does die.

If you're using a high-end motherboard, it doesn't make sense to pay MORE for something less.
 
No. I don't miss those days. I'm personally glad I don't need to waste an extra slot for a sound card that uses shitty drivers that can make the system BSOD.

I would go so far as to say that after a certain period, sound cards were a gimmick to everyone except audiophiles. I'm glad everyone got their senses together and realized we don't need them anymore.
 
Meh? I run a sound card, doesn't really matter if the motherboard has onboard audio or not. It's dead simple to turn it off so it never gets used.

If anything I sort of like that because if my card ever dies I have a backup audio source.
 
I agree with PornoSatan... my sound card (an old Audigy Gamer) gives more headaches than solves. I personally am glad onboard sound and video is included. As previously mentioned, should one of those cards go bellyup, you won't be without while waiting for a replacement.
 
Putting a soundcard inside your case is a recipe for noise unless you get one of those fat shielded jobs. Onboard or external DAC or soundcard via USB/optical. I think at this point internal add-on soundcards are mostly an anachronism.
 
I currently use an Asus Xonar DG (the cheapest possible variant) jammed between two 970's using Unified Xonar Drivers, and I don't notice any noises coming through my headset. I mostly use it for the Dolby Surround, works pretty well for what it costs.

That being said, the fact that the motherboard has a perfectly working onboard sound solution has always been preferable for me, as it makes the sound card optional rather than required. If I didn't like it, I could simply unplug the card and go back to the onboard without having to waste anymore money. These the onboard sound solutions are often good enough that you can get by without any further hardware assistance.
 
I owned every Creative sound card from an old SB16 to an Audigy 2.

Back when a sound card kept the motherboard from gobbling up CPU cycles for audio, it was worth it.

Nowadays, I'm perfectly happy with Realtek HD.
 
I'm into my sound a lot and dont find the onboard solution causes a problem, it can be disabled.
It has come in handy troubleshooting in the past and has served to provide another mic in when I needed it.
 
D1RTYD1Z619 said:
like a man is supposed to
Click to expand...

Correction:
Old men who don't understand modern PCs use PCI sound cards.

InternationalHat said:
Putting a soundcard inside your case is a recipe for noise unless you get one of those fat shielded jobs. Onboard or external DAC or soundcard via USB/optical. I think at this point internal add-on soundcards are mostly an anachronism.
Click to expand...

And there is your answer.
Think you care about sound. Get an external DAC.
Other than that onboard is great for powering everything else.
 
Onboard is perfect. Allows me to output via hdmi to my 7.2 receiver. Don't need anything else :/
 
mw8t said:
Onboard is perfect. Allows me to output via hdmi to my 7.2 receiver. Don't need anything else :/
Click to expand...

I may have missed the joke.

HDMI out does not use the sound card and relies 100% on the external equipment for handling the sound.
 
runs2far said:
I may have missed the joke.

HDMI out does not use the sound card and relies 100% on the external equipment for handling the sound.
Click to expand...

Er exactly :/

Uncompressed passed to something heavyweight not a pathetic little soundcard
 
JayJapanB said:
Correction:
Old men who don't understand modern PCs use PCI sound cards.



And there is your answer.
Think you care about sound. Get an external DAC.
Other than that onboard is great for powering everything else.
Click to expand...

And really, really, old men use separate ISA serial and IDE controller cards:)
 
InternationalHat said:
Putting a soundcard inside your case is a recipe for noise unless you get one of those fat shielded jobs. Onboard or external DAC or soundcard via USB/optical. I think at this point internal add-on soundcards are mostly an anachronism.
Click to expand...

Other way around really. I had some really bad hiss with the onboard on my last motherboard. One Xonar card later (PCIe x1 card), no more hiss.
 
Fought w/ SB cards for DECADES! The root of all evil.

Went onboard audio years back, never looked back either.
 
No, I don't miss those days. Every Sound Blaster product I have tried had tons of problems with drivers. It's was so bad that my X-fi is sitting in the bottom of my parts bin. The only good experience I have had was with a Turtlebeach Montego II that I recently installed in a retro gaming rig.

Onboard ftw! :p
 
PornoSatan said:
No. I don't miss those days. I'm personally glad I don't need to waste an extra slot for a sound card that uses shitty drivers that can make the system BSOD.

I would go so far as to say that after a certain period, sound cards were a gimmick to everyone except audiophiles. I'm glad everyone got their senses together and realized we don't need them anymore.
Click to expand...

Hell yes to this. Realtek audio chips have come a long way and I have never had an issue with their drivers. Also, ever since companies started isolating the audio circuitry on their boards I can't say I have had any issues with hiss or popping. I don't miss Creative or ASUS cards with their garbage software one damned bit.
 
NukeULater said:
The only good experience I have had was with a Turtlebeach Montego II that I recently installed in a retro gaming rig.
Click to expand...

Was yours the Quadzilla? I had one. Loved it, too.

I use USB audio with my desktop and have for a while, but I don't mind onboard audio and I think it's quite usable with good sound quality in many cases. Though sometimes it's poorly implemented.

There have been some good SB cards over the years, though I also did fight with the settings in DOS a lot. Not as bad as a Gravis Ultrasound in that regard, though.
 
I like having motherboard sound as a backup because you never know what will happen. But I have never been terribly impressed with the output quality of any of the integrated Realtek solutions. The sound quality pushed to my speakers through a Sound Blaster Zx is so obviously better that it was worth the extra $100 and slot to use. It's also overall cheaper than the cost of having an external DAC and takes up less space. In my opinion it's a happy medium between "I don't give a fuck" and audiophile-level obsession.

More and more, add-in sound cards are coming with EMI shields, too.
 
Absolutely not, I like on-board sound for most purposes. It's so much easier than it used to be: no more finding the perfect PCI slot that mapped the right IRQ to produce no noise/stutter when you jumped in a 3D game or kicked-off a disk transfer. And no dealing with incompatibilities like VIA chipsets and Creative Labs cards, where both parties blamed each other for not working properly (and neither lifted a finger to fix it).

On-board audio just works. If I want better, I can install a 3rd-party device.

Don't forget the kick-in-the-ass on-board sound gave Creative. After utterly destroying all their add-in competition by 1998, Creative Labs had to compete with the increasing quality of free sound, and of course themselves (all those old SB Live! and SB AudioPCI/64/128 cards just got reused for new builds) New high-quality PC speakers were exposing Creative's historically crappy sound quality, and they needed some way to compete besides just selling to high-end gamers.
 
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^ lol hate creative much? Audigy or newer is not crappy sound. neither was Asw32/64....
 
I use a receiver so i'll take the onboard so I don't have to buy something with optical out.
 
Onboard all the way. It never failed. Get your nice new mobo in the mail with your fancy sound card only to find out after a week of pulling your hair out that drivers for your sound card and southbridge usb hub controller cause stuttering and lag.

Another layer of guesswork removed.
 
Plus, sound today is just a codec. Read what that is. There' no magial better sounding chipset. Outside of maybe better shielding.

Money would be better spent on your amplification stage (low thd) and speakers.
 
I cant agree with that unfortunately.
Codec means enCoder Decoder, it defines nothing other than basic function.
The device that converts digital signals to analogue is the DAC and they vary immensely in quality.
I've used many and have settled on the Sabre32 reference.
Worth a try if you have the speakers and amp to show the difference.
 
Nenu said:
I cant agree with that unfortunately.
Codec means enCoder Decoder, it defines nothing other than basic function.
The device that converts digital signals to analogue is the DAC and they vary immensely in quality.
I've used many and have settled on the Sabre32 reference.
Worth a try if you have the speakers and amp to show the difference.
Click to expand...

The DAC is integral to all modern codec chipsets since the late 90s. Don't confuse software codec and hardware codec.
 
the Audigy EMU10K1/2 are audio DSP (digital signal processor) and a very good one at that
 
Used onboard for years after it became normal on motherboards. Bought the SB Z only when the onboard on my old board started to drop out every few minutes. It was cheaper than buying a new board and I didn't have down time for an RMA.

Thankfully no issues, but now my color scheme inside my pc is all kinds of screwed up. blue fans, and ram, red sound card, yellow on the board, and purple on the water pump (because I said "fuck it" after seeing all the color clash).
 
I went with a soundcard on my new build since I was getting static and noise from my new speakers on my HTPC that I put in the garage to game on.
New PC and Soundcard didn't fix the issue though, had to pull the ground from the speakers to get the static and noise to stop.
 
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