Ok Im in the market for a soundcard as Im currently working with onboard sound atm (yes i feel sorry for me aswell lol). My question is how much performance difference in games or sound intensive programs does a soundcard make?
A soundcard question
- Thread starter Jon1818
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They are two rather different questions as I understand the issue - a good gaming soundcard does not always (or even often) make a great sound production card and vice versa - there will be some overlap of course but compromises will probably require to be made.
What do you spend more of your time doing - gaming or sound intensive (?) work?
Onboard sound is a lot better now than it used to be both in regard to quality and CPU power required but it won't be as good as a proper dedicated soundcard.
What do you spend more of your time doing - gaming or sound intensive (?) work?
Onboard sound is a lot better now than it used to be both in regard to quality and CPU power required but it won't be as good as a proper dedicated soundcard.
Well tbh I dont really spend that much time doing either but I was jw how much of a performance boost (if any) that a soundcard would give during gaming.
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I've got my doubts you will see any huge differences, maybe a couple of fps at the most but you may want to wait for confirmation on that.
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You better go and Google cause its been asked too many times in the correct section and peeps are probably like me fed up answering.
No Sound enabled (not mute, I mean removed in bios or jumpers) would give you more FPS, but a Dedi Soundcard with its own CPU and Memory will give you more FPS than Onboard.
There was a review years back with a X-FI (normal 2MB Memory version) V Gigabyte Mobo with Onboard.
No Sound enabled (not mute, I mean removed in bios or jumpers) would give you more FPS, but a Dedi Soundcard with its own CPU and Memory will give you more FPS than Onboard.
There was a review years back with a X-FI (normal 2MB Memory version) V Gigabyte Mobo with Onboard.
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Soundcards have a processor built into them which reduces the load on the CPU, onboard sound relies on the CPU to do the work which potentially slows down the system. It isn't likely to be much given the power of todays CPUs but it is still an extra task that could be delegated to a dedicated processor on the soundcard.
There's not a huge amount of difference in performace, what you do tend to get is support for more features with less performance hit than with on-board sound and better quality components. I have and X-Fi Platinum that i picked up nice and cheap off the bay. It has support for the most advanced EAX for games and loads of inputs. I mainly went for the Plat as i wanted the spdif input to run from my Pioneer mixer when recording as it gives full 96k digital quality. If you're looking at recording etc then IMO its worth shelling out for.
And Helmut, this is a place where people come for help and advice and to ask questions. So what if the question has been asked before, not everyone wants to sit and trawl through post after post after post for an answer that may not be there. If you're fed up of answering, the simple answer is don't! Skip the thread and move on!
Now don't get me wrong, i'm not having a go, but there seems to be a developing atmosphere of hostility on these forums recently towards questions that have been asked before, which i feel is a real shame as many people look to OCUK forums for quick, helpful and accurate advice. Come on people, lets bring back the love!
And Helmut, this is a place where people come for help and advice and to ask questions. So what if the question has been asked before, not everyone wants to sit and trawl through post after post after post for an answer that may not be there. If you're fed up of answering, the simple answer is don't! Skip the thread and move on!
Now don't get me wrong, i'm not having a go, but there seems to be a developing atmosphere of hostility on these forums recently towards questions that have been asked before, which i feel is a real shame as many people look to OCUK forums for quick, helpful and accurate advice. Come on people, lets bring back the love!
And Helmut, this is a place where people come for help and advice and to ask questions. So what if the question has been asked before, not everyone wants to sit and trawl through post after post after post for an answer that may not be there. If you're fed up of answering, the simple answer is don't! Skip the thread and move on!
Now don't get me wrong, i'm not having a go, but there seems to be a developing atmosphere of hostility on these forums recently towards questions that have been asked before, which i feel is a real shame as many people look to OCUK forums for quick, helpful and accurate advice. Come on people, lets bring back the love!
Not weighing in on either side but i've always had the opinion that the more threads you have, the more widespread the answers become, the more difficult it is for someone trying to find an answer as they have to trawl multiple threads.
That said i think it's unrealistic to expect a tiny amount of posts on such a large subject. And people always feel better when they get a personal response than if they have to analyse something else, just one of them human thingies.
If you don't want to keep answering these questions, don't
that said i've always bought soundcards, latest being X-FI Gamer, so i now have Soundcard, onboard and 5.1 Built in soundcard in my headphones, i can't notice much difference between then except for the 5.1 which is lovely but drivers crap out all my USB devices. The soundcard does have all the extra bells and whistles though
I guess the gap between performance and quality of onboard peripherals and their dedicated processing unit brothers is getting smaller and smaller.