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.

 

[Admetos]

The optical out on your sound card should sound exactly the same as the optical out on your motherboard.

There is driver / processing issues that can effect sound. For example on any of the Asus ST / STX line up of cards. If you select the output as pure digital out, the digital out sounds different compared to if the stereo channel is running, and SPDIF out is selected also. So the later is being altered by the analogue output setting.

 

[JollyJamma]

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.

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

I know the onboard analog is awful.

My experience of onboard has always been that it’s poor compared to a dedicated sound card or USB DAC but it really depends on how each is implemented.

Some onboard audio is implemented well and sounds fine but others are really bad and are only useful for fault finding.

I’ve got two Ifi Zen V2 DACs and really like them for their audio quality.

 

[FatRakoon]

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.

Well, I have been trying out the optical output on every board that I have both currently, and have had in teh past, and when comparing that to a Dedicated card, there is simply a vast ocean of difference, and not a single onboard Audio solution has EVER made me think that it is even close to being decent compared to the cards.

Either they sound poor in comparison, or they dont handle the gaming aspect of it, I dont know, but right now, you saying that, in my own experience is almost laughable.

My Main PC is currently an older PC as I am using Linux now and my best PC still has Windows on it for the missus.
I will soon be wiping that PC and going Linux on that too!

That PC has the ASUS Essence STX, while the Linux PC has the Creative ZXR inside it, but I am at the moment using my old TASCAM US-100 and it is NOT connected to the speakers. I have qa handful of various USB Devices now that all seem to be fairly decent... But I have only been using them on headphones for the time being.

The speakers are currently the Creative Z5500 with the Mission speakers. Cant use them much as my Son and DIL are in the room above my music rtoom and the miserable freeloaders moan when I play any music... Thats fine when she is working from home, but other times she can sod off.

 

[FatRakoon]

My experience of onboard has always been that it’s poor compared to a dedicated sound card or USB DAC but it really depends on how each is implemented.

Some onboard audio is implemented well and sounds fine but others are really bad and are only useful for fault finding.

Mine too!

I have never been impressed by any onboard Audio... Not really... Maybe the old ABIT NF7S from way back had something but other than that... Its been acceptable at best.

I got a Gigabyte Z270 Gamer Mobo that has an Intel 7700 in it... Thats got a supposedly half decent on board audio solution, that I played with for almost 5 minutes before I decided that I was wasting my time... Analog and Digital was simply useless. That was the last time I wasted my time with onboard Audio... No, hang on... My Ryzen Mobo has OnBoard Audio, and yeah, I was every bit as underwhelmed by that too! - I genuinelly feel that they are wasting time in bothering with it.

I say that Onboard Audio is the same as OnBoard Graphics... It does a fine job for the basic stuff, but if you want it to be good, then you get a card.

 

[Gray2233]

Well, I have been trying out the optical output on every board that I have both currently, and have had in teh past, and when comparing that to a Dedicated card, there is simply a vast ocean of difference, and not a single onboard Audio solution has EVER made me think that it is even close to being decent compared to the cards.

Either they sound poor in comparison, or they dont handle the gaming aspect of it, I dont know, but right now, you saying that, in my own experience is almost laughable.

My Main PC is currently an older PC as I am using Linux now and my best PC still has Windows on it for the missus.
I will soon be wiping that PC and going Linux on that too!

That PC has the ASUS Essence STX, while the Linux PC has the Creative ZXR inside it, but I am at the moment using my old TASCAM US-100 and it is NOT connected to the speakers. I have qa handful of various USB Devices now that all seem to be fairly decent... But I have only been using them on headphones for the time being.

The speakers are currently the Creative Z5500 with the Mission speakers. Cant use them much as my Son and DIL are in the room above my music rtoom and the miserable freeloaders moan when I play any music... Thats fine when she is working from home, but other times she can sod off.

You're using old hardware which was still limited to do things which might be best for old solutions.

What is the most modern machine you have access to and the USB solutions you've been using exactly? I mentioned earlier that soundcards were often used to offset processing from slow CPU's and you're talking about hardware in an era where that was still semi-relevant depending on use case.

If you try to process higher end audio purely via optical and your CPU you might suffer (it shouldn't by any sane metric), and that's not even touching upon the state of your O/S installation and how much bloat you may or may not have.

Outside of that, our ears tend to get used to X sound over time. If you've done that for a very long time with specific setups you might find a preference which would bleed out over time should you use different hardware for an extended period (audiophiles tend to call that burning in and it's usually nonsense, it's purely mental adjustment).

The Z5500 are low end speakers, they were "high end" gaming speakers once upon a time but there's no such thing as high end gaming speakers in the grand scheme, they very well might be a literal bottleneck.

 

[Admetos]

Mine too!

I have never been impressed by any onboard Audio... Not really... Maybe the old ABIT NF7S from way back had something but other than that... Its been acceptable at best.

I got a Gigabyte Z270 Gamer Mobo that has an Intel 7700 in it... Thats got a supposedly half decent on board audio solution, that I played with for almost 5 minutes before I decided that I was wasting my time... Analog and Digital was simply useless. That was the last time I wasted my time with onboard Audio... No, hang on... My Ryzen Mobo has OnBoard Audio, and yeah, I was every bit as underwhelmed by that too! - I genuinelly feel that they are wasting time in bothering with it.

I say that Onboard Audio is the same as OnBoard Graphics... It does a fine job for the basic stuff, but if you want it to be good, then you get a card.

As I've mentioned in the past I've never been happy with on-board audio, main reason is the noise /emi that's floating around the computer.

The best sound card I had was the Asus STX II and that was a world away from Gigabyte onboard audio..

I now run ASIO via a Yamaha cd-s2100 used as external DAC and that's another jump again - I tried both ASIO and optical into that unit and the ASIO was better. I then improve things more with mains conditioning and isolating noise from the PC, I've tried talking about these things before here but it's unfortunately the wrong forum - people don't realise their own gear is sometimes compromised by poor AC mains or ground loops, but they refuse to try themselves and will never know any different. My room has sound panels from Visoustis - these are the same panels Jay from Jays audio YouTube installed. I run Adam Audio S2X and I had to install the sound panels as those speakers really exposed room issues.

Gone off on one of my tangents again but you can get very high end audio from your computer, but it takes some work and time to choose gear and set the room up. One advice is look for pre-owned studio gear as it sells much cheaper but the quality is very high, my Adam S2X's are ex-studio.

One negative of improving your audio is you become really critical of other people's audio, I will visit people's houses and audio is terrible or has issues, most people today don't even care about audio their running Bluetooth speakers.

 

[FatRakoon]

You're using old hardware which was still limited to do things which might be best for old solutions.

What is the most modern machine you have access to and the USB solutions you've been using exactly? I mentioned earlier that soundcards were often used to offset processing from slow CPU's and you're talking about hardware in an era where that was still semi-relevant depending on use case.

If you try to process higher end audio purely via optical and your CPU you might suffer (it shouldn't by any sane metric), and that's not even touching upon the state of your O/S installation and how much bloat you may or may not have.

Outside of that, our ears tend to get used to X sound over time. If you've done that for a very long time with specific setups you might find a preference which would bleed out over time should you use different hardware for an extended period (audiophiles tend to call that burning in and it's usually nonsense, it's purely mental adjustment).

The Z5500 are low end speakers, they were "high end" gaming speakers once upon a time but there's no such thing as high end gaming speakers in the grand scheme, they very well might be a literal bottleneck.

Yes, some of the stuff I do use is old, but thats not any kind of excuse. It is old and so were the cards I was comparing it to.

Newest stuff though? Ok, well the latest AMD Setup I have, is the Asus x870 and the intel a Gigabyte B860 AORUS. Both are not low end.

The Sound Cards that I have, are Creative Recon 3D, plus ZXR, and also Asus Xonar & Essence STX II
USB ones are Various little things including Logitech, and Creative, plus an OMNI, Tascam US-100 plus a pair of TASCAM US-122 that I use on the Atari setup, and I have a couple of other various things that have varying levels of niceness.

I have NOT used the speakers for some time, I have these purely because they have multiple inputs and they are 5.1

My favouritres are the Altec Lansing but they are Analog only and only have one input.

I have upgraded my Atari Studio setup and so I will be bringing the Onkyo Amp and the Speakers into the PC Room and that will replace the Creative Z5500. I was never truly blown away by that... It has great thumping sounds and nice clear highs but for music, it felt a bit too iffy.

I mostly use headphones anyway, and I have a fairly niceselection to chose from, and to be fair, they are mid-range and I cannot justify spending too much as I do have slight hearing problems.

I got Nokia Monsters, BOSE, AKG, and a couple of other sets, but weirdly, I was given a pair of Silvercrest Bluetooth headphones last week, and they actually sound really nice. Bloody Silvercrest? Anyway, I am using those right now and I am actually happy with them, but the Bluetooth side of it, I dont care for... They are wired up... The Nokia Monsters are the same... They have Bluetooth but the battery has died so they only get used wired.

Anyway, I am waffling...

Yes, the Z5500 were "THE" speakers to get for gaming... Thats why I got them.

I need to clarify something, that I just rememebered... the Z5500 I got rid of about 3 or 4 years ago... The ones I have, are the Z906 or something??? Very similar I suppose.
I know I keep saying the Z5500 but its not them that I have ... Not anymore.

And for what its worth, my O/S that I mostly use nowadays is Linux and there is next to ZERO bloat.

I will freely admit that Linux does not seem to use a massive load of driver software as it simply runs the sound devices without the need to have to download any drivers.

This might be a downer and it might be a good thing, I dont truly know.

 

[JollyJamma]

And for what its worth, my O/S that I mostly use nowadays is Linux and there is next to ZERO bloat.

I will freely admit that Linux does not seem to use a massive load of driver software as it simply runs the sound devices without the need to have to download any drivers.

This might be a downer and it might be a good thing, I dont truly know.

I love Linux for that and would happily take a driver that works well enough over a more recent driver that may or may not come with a ton of bloat, looking at you Asus and MSI!, and which tries to get me to install Norton AV.

The only time I've had an issue with Linux and drivers is when I tried to install an old and long-outdated PCI-e sound card on an AMD X570 board, and there was complete incompatibility between the motherboard chipset and the sound card.

 

[melmac]

Well, I have been trying out the optical output on every board that I have both currently, and have had in teh past, and when comparing that to a Dedicated card, there is simply a vast ocean of difference, and not a single onboard Audio solution has EVER made me think that it is even close to being decent compared to the cards.

Unless you are using ancient motherboards and gear from before around 2010. Then no, there should be no difference. For any half decent modern system, (speakers, motherboards, amps, dacs, whatever) The quality of the digital out on your system will depend on the external device. For example, the digital output on the Gigabyty Z270 uses the RealTEk ACL887 codec. This has the same capabilities as any of the sound cards you mention. Can support the same formats, bitrates and supports bit perfect playback. So no jitter problems.

If you are hearing such a massive difference then there there are 3 possible reasons for that.

1. Your sound card/motherboard is processing the sound before sending it to the external device. While you might be connected using digital, the sound card/motherboard is acting as the DAC and just sending that over digital to the speakers to play. In this situation, yes, there could be a difference in the sound quality between the sound card and motherboard playing the same material on the same speakers.

2. You are comparing the analogue out from your sound card to the digital out on your motherboard.

3. You have been really unlucky and had all faulty motherboards with problems like one that Gray223 mentioned, faulty capacitor that affects nothing else.

However, if you are using digital out and letting the external device(Speakers, AMP etc.) do the DAC, then the sound quality will the same whether you use the digital out on your motherboard or your sound card. Because the quality of the sound will depend entirely on the DAC been used.

I would you bet you any money, in a blind test using digital only, you would not be able to tell the difference if the output was from a sound card or a motherboard.

NOTE: I am only taking about digital out in this post. Not Analogue. For Analogue, yes the sound quality is still better than motherboard audio. But that gap is also closing.