Onboard vs Card - Stupid Q but hey ho.

[FatRakoon]

This is something that has always bugged me.

I have a fairly good collection of Motherboards and Sound Cards, or certainly have through the years, but so many people tell me that the Digital Audio output on the Motherboard is every bit as good as the Output on a card.

Now, this is simply something that, for me at least, has never been even close to true.

I have NEVER had an onboard Audio solution that has come close to being as good as a card.

Right now, I am playing with an old Motherboard, the Gigabyte Z270 Gamer ( Or whatever the hell it is ) and this has supposedly funky Creative Sound Card and frankly, its abysmal. Its sounds are not as clear as the Creative cards that I am comparing it with ( ZXR, Recon3D and a PCIE SoundBlaster ) and this is on both the Analog 3.5mm outputs and the OpticalDigital output, going to the Logitech Z5500.

Not only that, but under gaming, when there is a lot of stuff going on, it clicks and misses out on Sounds as if its incapale of playing more than say 8 sounds at a time? - The cards dont have that issue.

Similarly, the HDMI output... When I try to use the Audio from the HDMI, it does not cope with lots of Audio... Or again, is that just me?

Ok, this is purely a whine and I do like a good whine, but right now, its buging me as I am trying to get my main PC to sound good and handle the Audio without me resorting to USB. ( plus I put my ONMI down yesterday and now I cant find it???? )

 

[Gray2233]

A digital output would be something like running HDMI or optical to whatever audio supporting device, meaning your onboard sound/dac wouldn't actually be processing anything, the end device would be.

If you're having issues it's probably related to something else, you're using two old products, and there's no such thing as "high end gaming speakers" -- frankly outside of offering relatively cheap and low profile surround sound Creative never really put out anything I'd consider high quality in terms of speakers. Chances are there's a fault somewhere in the chain if digital passthrough is causing problems when using your motherboard/gpu for things, that can be tricky to troubleshoot however and if you already own soundcards which resolve said issues just keep using them.

Personally speaking, I run HDMI for audio to via my GPU to a TV/AvR setup alongside speakers and have zero issues. I also have a Woo Audio Fireflies/7 DAC/AMP combo via USB with a set of LCD-2 headphones and again no issues, absolutely fantastic sound quality. I've been doing this for over a decade now, I haven't touched a soundcard since PCI (aka the original, not PCI-E) was still a thing with an Asus Essence ST and honestly don't miss them in the least.

 

[deviation]

A digital output would be something like running HDMI or optical to whatever audio supporting device, meaning your onboard sound/dac wouldn't actually be processing anything.

If you're having issues it's probably related to something else, you're using two old products, and there's no such thing as "high end gaming speakers" -- frankly outside of offering relatively cheap and low profile surround sound Creative never really put out anything I'd consider high quality in terms of speakers. Chances are there's a fault somewhere in the chain if digital passthrough is causing problems when using your motherboard/gpu for things, that can be tricky to troubleshoot however and if you already own soundcards which resolve said issues just keep using them.

Personally speaking, I run HDMI for audio to via my GPU to a TV/AvR setup alongside speakers and have zero issues. I also have a Woo Audio Fireflies/7 DAC/AMP combo via USB with a set of LCD-2 headphones and again no issues, absolutely fantastic sound quality. I've been doing this for over a decade now, I haven't touched a soundcard since PCI (aka the original, not PCI-E) was still a thing with an Asus Essence ST and honestly don't miss them in the least.

This!
I also just use the DP/HDMI out of the GPU for audio out and then send it to my Amp/sub/speakers.

 

[FatRakoon]

Ok guys. I agree with you, however, what I have been doing today, is I have both the ONBOARD and the SOUNDCARD both working, and I am using the same hardware, and just selecting the output device and simply plugging in the Optical cable, and the audio is definitely different.
Simlarly when I played a couple of games, the onboard was jittery when it had loads of audio to do and the card simply did it.

The hardware I was using is the Gigabyte Z270 Gaming 5 and the Onboard Audio is Creative and the card I am comparing it to, is the SoundBlaster Audigy.

When it comes to HDMI I have a number of devices that extract the Audio from the HDMI, and these all do the same thing and a couple have Optical outputs, and again, the Audio is better for sure, but it does NOT handle lots of Audio like when music, talking, explosions gunfire and engine sounds are all going on! - Even then, I am exaggerating the sounds...

The HDMI Solution I have used on both my HTPCs and its great doing just that, but for gaming, Im not impressed.

I am absolutely 100% on agreement with the Speakers and Hi Quality Audio. I have the proper stuff on the Atari for high quality music, but these are gaming PCs and the Audio I am trying to get, is 5.1 for games and so I want good quality, but what I am getting is simply not good audio.

But this has been the thing for many many years....

But as I said, forgettign about whether or not to use an external DAC or anything, the Audio Quality from onboard is always dire when compared to a half decent card... Even if the Audio is pretty much the same on both the Mobo and the card... I would say that its just like onboard Graphics, in that it is not as good as a dedicated card.

 

[Gray2233]

Ok guys. I agree with you, however, what I have been doing today, is I have both the ONBOARD and the SOUNDCARD both working, and I am using the same hardware, and just selecting the output device and simply plugging in the Optical cable, and the audio is definitely different.
Simlarly when I played a couple of games, the onboard was jittery when it had loads of audio to do and the card simply did it.

As mentioned it's really difficult to troubleshoot, it could be something weird like a dodgy capacitor on the motherboard that effects literally nothing else.

You could try installing latency mon and using that to see if there's a background software issue related to the handling of things? The soundcard might bypass something like that and certainly will any hardware related issues, while not processing the audio in of itself it would still be processing the data transfer.

A lot of older motherboards did not have an onboard audio processor/system either and would offload onto the CPU -- it's the reason soundcards became so popular back in the day.

https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

 

[Admetos]

I have NEVER had an onboard Audio solution that has come close to being as good as a card.

Over the years I've had loads of Gigabyte boards, I never liked the analogue output from Gigabyte boards, thought it was always poor. Digital output (into a DAC) from motherboard audio was always OK however.

 

[FatRakoon]

Gigabyte have been my top boards for quite some time and this all really started with the DS3 when I got my first Core2Duo - the 6300 I think? Not sure and not important right now.
My best board for onboard audio was the NF7S but even then, I was using a SBLive as I found the Live Drive to be essential for me at the time.

As for the DAC option, I have a Cambridge Audio DAC, but I am just wanting to have a good card in the Linux Gaming PC really.

I use a Creative ZXR in this PC mostly but every so ften it goes silent and its bugging me.
Its a simple fix, but its just annoying me cos I have had to do it a handful of times now.

( I just clear the PulseAudio config folder and then restart pulseaudio ) - I might do a script for it so I can just double click when it does it, but Im bone idle.

Oh, and I just had another play when I found my Xonar XG card in one of the other PCs and that was also silent, and again, when I tried the OnBoard audio, I could hear it hum like an earth loop sound.
It crackled when I moved the mouse, or did stuff like copy files etc... Quite loud too!

So sod it, I stuffed the Creative ZXR back in, and reset the Audio and its back to happy days.

MY SUSE Linux PC is the one that is connected through the Digital Optical and so I will do more messing about with that... Its my old AMD 9590 in a SabreTooth 990FX Mobo and the Audio card in that is the Recon3D but I will see about its optical on the Mobo ... In honesty I dont hibnk I have ever tried it?? I know the onboard analog is awful.

Hell, its 4am - I need to go to sleep... After I just gotta do this....

 

[Nemiyen]

What AVR are you guys using? I'd always expected them to add a lot of lag or delay which would suck for games but be fine for movies or music.

I've always preferred soundcards to anything onboard and I can definitely notice a difference in the sound, but whether it would be better or worse I think I'm losing my ability to tell!

I go back and forth between headphones with EQ and sometimes I hear a song and think yeah that EQ makes it sound better and then other times I'll listen and think yeah that sounds great and realise EqualiserAPO has lost the hook into the Soundcard / DAC and it wasn't working!

I definitely can be swayed to think something sounds better the longer I listen to it.

 

[hornetstinger]

I try to use digital out, that way bypass any noise or interference from onboard. I'm using a AVR to passive speakers and a active subwoofer (2.1 system) sounds awesome.

Using a AVR means it offers HDMI in/out, bass management, room correction, multiple digital and analogue in etc.

A stereo amp might be ok, but if you have digital transport, HDMI sources, then need to figure routing of that- HDMI switches, possibly a DAC, or using analogue out from PC.

I wouldn't know how you would test for "gaming delay" but it seems fine. I guess "pure direct" mode would be best if you're concerned about that or notice it - would have to use analogue input.

 

[melmac]

But as I said, forgettign about whether or not to use an external DAC or anything, the Audio Quality from onboard is always dire when compared to a half decent card... Even if the Audio is pretty much the same on both the Mobo and the card... I would say that its just like onboard Graphics, in that it is not as good as a dedicated card.

Something is wrong somewhere. The optical out on your sound card should sound exactly the same as the optical out on your motherboard. It's the external device that's doing the processing. So it could be anything. The optical connection on motherboards are sometimes faulty. It could be a conflict(hardware/software) between the onboard audio and the soundcard or it could be like Gray2233 says above and it could be something weird like a dodgy capacitor.

You can't compare onboard vs motherboard audio quality based on the digital output. If the digital output on your Soundcard sounds that much better than the optical out on your motherboard, there is a problem somewhere.

 

[hornetstinger]

Something is wrong somewhere. The optical out on your sound card should sound exactly the same as the optical out on your motherboard. It's the external device that's doing the processing. So it could be anything. The optical connection on motherboards are sometimes faulty. It could be a conflict(hardware/software) between the onboard audio and the soundcard or it could be like Gray2233 says above and it could be something weird like a dodgy capacitor.

You can't compare onboard vs motherboard audio quality based on the digital output. If the digital output on your Soundcard sounds that much better than the optical out on your motherboard, there is a problem somewhere.

Probably resampling going on, 44.1 CD track and it's outputting 48khz. Or perhaps some DD/DTS Live encoding so PCM to DD/DTS real time encoding.