Onboard sound vs sound card: which is better?

xshaney

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Jan 14, 2012
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I have an MSI z87-GD65 motherboard... since the onboard sound is realtek with sound blaster cinema, I don't know if the sound blaster Z sound card sound better than onboard? Plus sound blaster z have a lot more features... The Realtek settings are really confused to me =\ So anyone who have similar board and sound card as me, can you give me your opinion on which one is better? The Sound card [sound blaster z] or onboard sound [realtek + sound blaster cinema]?

i am not talking about only the settings and the features... I am also talking about the sound also... Which one that can deliver the loudest, the purest sound, can deliver heavy bass without any problems?
 
I have an MSI z87-GD65 motherboard... since the onboard sound is realtek with sound blaster cinema, I don't know if the sound blaster Z sound card sound better than onboard? Plus sound blaster z have a lot more features... The Realtek settings are really confused to me =\ So anyone who have similar board and sound card as me, can you give me your opinion on which one is better? The Sound card [sound blaster z] or onboard sound [realtek + sound blaster cinema]?

i am not talking about only the settings and the features... I am also talking about the sound also... Which one that can deliver the loudest, the purest sound, can deliver heavy bass without any problems?

The onboard card on your motherboard has plenty of power for most things. I would not pay to upgrade that to the sound blaster.
 
The onboard card on your motherboard has plenty of power for most things. I would not pay to upgrade that to the sound blaster.

I have the sound blaster z for 1 and half year before I even got my hand on the MSI board. I've used the sound blaster z for my logitech z5500 5.1 speakers and it was really loud with just only 3 bars of volume on the speaker [my logitech z5500 have a total of 20 bars which is the max (the loudest sound like a club/party) + boost 11 is over 20 bars], with the onboard sound - the loudest is 6 bars while sound blaster z are at 3 bars the loudest. I like the onboard sound however i turned the 5.1 surround to Stereo because the 5.1 surround in realtek made the sound not as good as it should be even if the cinema 5.1 surround sound is on =\, with stereo the bass increased and the sound getting louder, while changing back to 5.1 the bass decreased and the sound become a little low and I have to increase the volume on my logitech control center to make it loud enough and to deliver the bass better.
 
normally a dedicated sound card delivers the best experience.
its why I bought the asus essence stx and sennheisers hd600 headphones.

I would assume the onboard would work good but sound is so individual to the user.
what one think is good the other think is bad.
 
Its a no brainer actually. The sound card will always be better for cleaner sound. Unless you have a ultra high unit built in but highly unlikely.
 
I have a sound card that I uninstalled because the on board sound is good enough Years back I always used a sound card but now since I rarely crank up my sound and mostly use headphones for gaming I use onboard.
 
I have a sound card that I uninstalled because the on board sound is good enough Years back I always used a sound card but now since I rarely crank up my sound and mostly use headphones for gaming I use onboard.
This. Technology has progressed to the point where onboard sound is fine. The only reason you'd want a sound card or an external audio interface is if you need an amp to drive headphones or passive (unamped) speakers, or you need other types of connections. The other is for professional use such as recording and monitoring, keeping latency to a minimum. If you're using cheap headphones or active (amped/powered) speakers, then you can probably spend that money elsewhere instead.
 
your sound card will be better, but unless you are using very good speakers or monitors you won't notice the difference unless you compare the two side-by-side in an acoustically treated room with volume at the same relative level.

being able to deliver heavy bass is mostly dependent on the A/D converter and the speakers (not to mention bass is very, very overrated)

I say just stick with onboard sound device unless your sound card is gonna be a 192khz/32-bit device with a low signal-to-noise ratio and is ASIO-compatible (not ASIO-4-all) (mainly because ASIO-compatible device means better A/D conversion).
 
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