Any Mobos with Good Integrated Sound Cards?

Not really. It starts with good power filtering, physical separation from high current traces to minimize inductive noise coupling, and separate output buffers. These all require board real estate and cost money, so an add-in card is a better solution. And honestly most people can't hear the difference with their crappy computer speakers.
 
depends what you mean by good, for most people yes, onboard is just fine

What do you plan to use to listen to the sounds?
 
z-5500 sound alot better with an x-fi to me. 5.1 go discrete. Headphones or cheap 2.0 just do onboard.
 
Stupac said:
z-5500 sound alot better with an x-fi to me. 5.1 go discrete. Headphones or cheap 2.0 just do onboard.
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Well, I wouldn't quite say the opposite, but decent headphones are going to be far more demanding on the source than the 5500 or any other computer speakers.
 
Sound has got better over the years no question there todays boards sound pretty decent. But..
Well after I got the Asus sound card frankly it sounds a lot better than the onboard even though it's by no means bad at all.

Depends on what you want or need might as well just add a sound card rather than lashing out on a more expensive board just for better sound.
 
Id go in the middle if your not wanting to go sound card. Look for a board that the onboard sound is on its own card. you get onboard sound with the separation of having the major components off the mobo.
 
I've never heard one that I was that happy with in terms of headphones. They don't put a lot of money in to the output stage and that tends to mean hiss and weak bass with phones. I have A700s at work, which are pretty easy to drive forgiving phones, and they have a bit of audible hiss when used with the onboard sound. Even a cheapie like an Audigy 2 has enough current on the output stage to eliminate that.

There's nothing wrong with onboard sound there days, and indeed the Realtek HD stuff actually has some of the least buggy drivers it seems. However the analogue components are cheap since it isn't like they are going to spend a ton on that one small part of the motherboard. If you have decent speakers, or especially headphones, you'll hear a difference.

As I said one of the most noticeable differences is the hiss. The poor power filtering combined with low end opamps mean that the load the headphones place on the output gives you an audible hiss. It isn't massive, but you can hear it. You get a better soundcard, and that all goes away (well there is still hiss, there always is because of the electrons bouncing around in the transistors, it is just below what you can hear).

My thing would generally be if your speakers/phones cost around what a soundcard does or more, it is worth getting a soundcard. So don't bother for some little $25 cheapie speakers, but do get one for some nice $100 phones.

Also you can always get it from Amazon and if you feel it is not worth the money spent, send it back, they are real good with returns so long as you don't abuse the system.
 
I would at LEAST get a card that lifts the circuitry off the board like a cheap Xonar DG... Or the X-Fi ti now is only 80 bucks which is a bangin' card for 80 bucks.

Onboard is fine for your parents to skype with the grandkids and all that... but for a gamer or music fan you really need a separate card.
 
Gigabyte has a few boards out now that use X-Fi chips and fairly nice (for computer audio) components, but still integrated into the motherboard.

The G1 Killer line is 1366 (the upper two models have the X-Fi), and the new G2 Sniper is sandy bridge z68.
 
The Rampage III extreme has an x-fi card, which is fairly decent. However, like many other commenters, a separate card is a lot better and more cost effective too
 
bobisgod said:
The Rampage III extreme has an x-fi card, which is fairly decent. However, like many other commenters, a separate card is a lot better and more cost effective too
Click to expand...

The issue with motherboards isn't the chipset that makes up the card, it is the supporting electronics. The Realtek HD chips on 99% of boards are just fine, and indeed have better drivers than many cards out there (looking at your, Creative Labs). The problem is that they are connected to a cheap output stage. They don't have a lot of power filtering, and they use cheap DACs and opamps. That leads to acoustic problems, like I said hiss and lack of bass with headphones. It is no fault of the mobo makers, they have to make an entire motherboard on a reasonable budget, they can't be dropping a ton on audio components.

Higher end dedicated cards don't have that problem. They can costs as much or more than a mobo, and thus can afford better components. So they'll have more capacitance and so on to stabilize and quiet the power, higher end opamps that can deliver more current and better handle reactive loads and so on. Net effect is better sound, particularly with "difficult" loads like headphones.

Also be aware that any motherboard I've seen doesn't have a "real" X-Fi. What I mean is Creative has two kinds of products they call "X-Fi":

The first is what they developed initially, the CA20K1 and CA20K2 chips. They are quite powerful DSP chips that handle all kinds of sound processing and acceleration in hardware. These are what you find on their high end cards, and on Auzentech X-Fis.

The second is their lower end stuff, and what you see on motherboards. The chips don't do much other than play sound, like other sound chips. All the "X-Fi" processing is done in drivers. It is a software solution.
 
The motherboards I mentioned above have the CA20K2 chips. I am using one now. Check it out. If you scroll through this review, towards the end, it discusses the 20K2 chip and its supporting electronics, which is on the Assassin and Sniper motherboards. You are basically getting a full X-Fi Titanium without having to dedicate an x1 slot.
 
Well what do you know. Never seen a board with a real X-Fi on it.

In other news, that is the ugliest looking motherboard I've ever seen :D. Lots o' components though.
 
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