Asus p8p67 pro on board audio or creative xifi gamer?

Baldbloke

Baldbloke

Baldbloke

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I'll be getting a new rig soon. It will use an Asus P8P67 pro motherboard. From what I believe, on board audio has come a long way in the last few years.

I already have a Creative XiFi gamer sound card.

I only ever use 2.1 speakers or sennhieser headphones - and always at low volume.

Question is: Will the quality of the XiFi sound card be better than the on board audio of the P8P67 pro?

I'm not a big audio buff. I'm sure as far as listening to music is concerned the on board audio will be sufficient for my needs. But I will be recording acoustic guitar via microphone. Just wanting to know if it's worth bothering to install an the additional sound card.

Yes, I could experiment and do comparisons but am interested to find out what you folks think of on board audio these days.

Thanks.
 
Question is: Will the quality of the XiFi sound card be better than the on board audio of the P8P67 pro?
Click to expand...

Yes.

Xtreme Gamer is the same as the Music, basically, which is what I have. On-board is much better than it was years ago, but it's not a patch on a decent sound card. When using my Goldring DR150 headphones, the difference between the on-board I have compared to the Xtreme Music is very noticeable. So much so, on-board with decent headphones is crap IMO.
 
Even the cheapest dedicated soundcard is better than an onboard solution, bit like graphics cards in that respect.
 
Hope you don't mind me hi-jacking your thread :)

I'm getting this same motherboard soon and have an old Audigy 2 ZS 7.1 I could use. Is it likely to be better than the on-board too?
 
On board sound hasn't really come a long way, it's just that having dedicated sound hardware is becoming more and more irrelevant for gaming purposes, since CPUs are so powerful these days, the impact of sound processing in games is negligible performance wise and hence developers prefer the flexibility of doing everything in software.

In terms of actual sound quality though, the gap between soundcards and onboard sound has probably gotten bigger recently, especially with the recent influx of cards from Asus and also Creatives X-Fi range.
 
I recently swapped out my Audigy 2 ZS but can confirm that it far surpassed the quality of the sound on my motherboard's integrated sound chip, despite a few crackles and pops and no microphone support with 64 bit drivers which annnoyed me a little. I needed to use motherboard sound for microphone and Audigy for other sounds, which worked fine by the way.

Motherboard sound for me was flat and lifeless even on a 3 year old Medusa 5.1 headset when I tried it.

Soundcards might not be the essential upgrade for everyone but I feel that it's important enough to justify spending a few quid.
 
Thanks Tealc!

I wonder if it's worth buying a new card for around £20 to replace the Audigy 2 ZS?

btw, do you know if I'd have to use the motherboard sound for a USB mic (on a webcam) too, or is it only the mic/line-in input that won't work with the 64bit drivers?
 
You could have a punt on the Xonar DG which seems to be the best card under £20 (if you go OEM you can get it that cheap here). It's designed more for headphones however it's still good for speakers and a worthy upgrade for the price.

As for the USB mic of the webcam, it doesn't connect through the sound card thus doesn't use the soundcard ;) USB is a digital connection so the DAC (or in the case of a mic, ADC) is built into the unit itself.
 
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