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Onboard vs. soundcard??

I

ITSTHINKING

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Mar 1, 2006
Messages
1,260
I have been using onboard sound for a long long time. I have heard that there are benefits to using sound cards besides the quality of the sound. I heard that there is a slight performance increase becuase the cpu isn't doing the extra work. What I was wondering, is if I were to buy a sound card just to free up the cpu from doing the sound, would I benefit from a spedier card like and x-fi? Or would something like a audigy or even sb live do the trick?? I diidn't know if newer cards were "faster" and there for wouuld be better performance wise. Sry for the newbness, I have little knowledge about audio cards.
 
I just recently went from onboard to an Audigy 2 ZS since I read that it would give you a few more FPS. I didn't do any FPS comparisons, just slapped it in.
I didn't notice any difference in CS:S (only game I play regulary) but I beleive that is because I already average about 100 fps to start with.
I did notice that the weapons and every sound in the game sounded different, has more punch and presence (you have to hear it), and music is much more cleaner.
 
Reason enough for me! I got some decent 5.1 speakers that would probably sound much nicer with a good sound card. Thanks for responding man
 
Performance difference will be negligible. Sound quality can be improved significantly.
 
Most of the time you will not notice the difference. The onboard sound just doesn't pull enough for one to notice. I use to run a game theater card just because I had it a while and liked the breakout box. When I rebuilt my machine this year I said screw it and just used the onboard. If you have some real nice speakers and they are setup right then you might notice a difference in sound. Key word is might.
 
ITSTHINKING said:
epenis needs audigy 2. they are cheap now
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If it makes you feel like you are more of a man then......

Sorry I had too.

Yea I mean go for it. They are nice cards.
 
An Audigy 2 ZS was a huge step up for me coming from an SBLive 5.1, so it would definitely be an improvement for you too. Regardless of performance benefits, the sound this card puts out is far superior to my old card.
 
Hate to thread jack, but also hate to waste space asking the same question...

I have nforce 570 mobo with onboard 8.1 Realtek HD audio, running a core 2 duo e6400...

My question is, is it worth it to use my audigy 2 zs? it's only 7.1 capable, and the cpu certainly can handle the "load" from having to run sound. will the quality difference be worth it?

-Ashley
 
JackAshley said:
Hate to thread jack, but also hate to waste space asking the same question...

I have nforce 570 mobo with onboard 8.1 Realtek HD audio, running a core 2 duo e6400...

My question is, is it worth it to use my audigy 2 zs? it's only 7.1 capable, and the cpu certainly can handle the "load" from having to run sound. will the quality difference be worth it?

-Ashley
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There will be a sound quality difference.
 
If you game a lot, a Creative sound card is pretty much necessary. If you don't really care about gaming, as long as your Realtek audio codec is one of the newer 8 series models, you wouldn't benefit much from a sound card.
 
get a xtreme music please, you can pick em for like 70 bucks these days..... audigy 2's are like 50.... get a x-fi as there newer tech... but zs is still good
 
I believe the performance increases if you are using 7.1 sound systems. Otherwise performance boosts are negligible.
 
Don't buy it for the performance. (though it's nice to have) Buy it for the sound quality.When I upgraded my onboard to and X-fi the difference was like night and day.You don't realize how bad onboard is until you make the switch.As a WoW player I went searching for snow just to hear the crunching of my footsteps.
 
Isn't the only choise for gamers (i mean price performance) to buy the X-Fi Fatality? Becouse of the audio XRam on it?
 
einer2060 said:
Isn't the only choise for gamers (i mean price performance) to buy the X-Fi Fatality? Becouse of the audio XRam on it?
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Please. X-RAM is practically useless except for in BF2, where it probably doesn't make much of a difference. An Xtrememusic will do just fine, the "Fatal1ty" card is just a marketing gimmick to make Creative more money.
 
OK, but you have also the "elite pro" card, thats not a "fatality" marketing thing, but it still offers audio ram? Won't BF2142 QuakeWars and Unreal2k7 supert audio ram? And so if you get 1 FPS in games from the card isnt it worth it?

I also don't like this "fatality" ideas my self, but i won't buy a card that is 100$ cheaper but won't increase fps in games, than i can use my onboard?
 
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