Performance: dedicated card vs onboard?

[Warl0rd]

How much of a performance hit do i have using the onboard audio instead of buying a dedicated card?

I was unable to find any benchmarks comparing FPS on games with or without dedicated audio card.

I don't plan on having any 5.1 surround system (the 2 small speakers in front of me is just fine) sound quality isn't a issue aswell (i disable EAX on games), but FPS drop due to crappy onboard audio is!

So should i stay with my onboard audio or give ~ $30 for the cheapest sound blaster card i can find?

 

[Shakey_Jake33]

For $30, it's a no-brainer to just take that bit of extra load off your processor. Think of it as a long-term, one-off purchase, which is is for most people.

 

[Audioguy]

Well a dedicated card is always better for gaming. The performance hit is nothing really to worry about in my opinion. Not with todays PC hardware. The main point in getting a soundcard should be for better sound...So $30 soundblaster may not be the right way to approach it, if you know what I mean. A $30 soundblaster wqould most likley be a software card and you wouldn't get any performance increase as it wouldn't take any load off your CPU...

 

[alg7_munif]

If you use lowest sound setting and disable EAX, a dedicated sound card won't make any performance difference at all. A dedicated sound card will make a difference when you use high sound settings but the difference is also not really huge depending on the situation.

 

[phide]

That is not accurate. If the CPU is utilized for sound processing, there will almost always be a performance hit. It can be slight and unnoticeable, but even with "low quality" audio (which the OP didn't mention using, and typically does not make any drastic difference), and even if the game is predominantly GPU-bound, there will be some performance difference.

Given his proc though, I can't imagine any card making enough of a difference to bother spending money on it. It's better for that $30-$40 to roll into the next video card or proc.