Sound card vs On-board

Mayfair

Mayfair

Mayfair

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Hello all,

I have a Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE sound card, And noticed my new motherboard has "8-Channel High Definition Audio" I was wondering what you think is best to use the Audigy SE or On-Board

I mostly play games , Watch Movies , Listen to music nothing like music creation etc :D

Here is my motherboard: ASUS P7P55D-E

Just wondering if it'll be better using my on-board since it states "8-Channel High Definition Audio"
 
Anything is better than onboard tbh. Even if it doesn't show a significant improvement moving to a card, it will be an improvement nonetheless.
 
Soundcard is better. Tried my onboard Gigabyte and it seems lifeless when compared to my old 5 year+ old Audigy2 ZS. I use scard for headphones and onboard for speakers but the speakers are £5 jobbies so it doesn't matter so much.
 
Sorry to hijack the thread but would this be the case for an Xfi extreme gamer card vs. the Asus P6X58D-E onboard sound?

I removed my Xfi card as I thought it was causing conflicts with BF2 Project Reality.
 
The x-fi extreme gamer card is an excellent sound card. It is definitely much better than the onboard, so long as you get it working right.
 
guys I have a USB set of speakers, do soundcards support USB speakers too? would it make a big difference?

i was just thinking about making this exact thread earlier, i have logitech z-10's
 
Unfortunately not - if you plug them in via USB it bypasses the soundcard.

However, from the reviews it seems like they produce some good quality sound - so I wouldn't worry.
 
you think there would be a improvement if i got a soundcard to use with some AE aego 2.1's? i have a msi p55-gd65 board
 
Carper said:
you think there would be a improvement if i got a soundcard to use with some AE aego 2.1's? i have a msi p55-gd65 board
Click to expand...

Those Aegos are some nice speakers - good choice (got a set back home - lovely sound).

Your motherboard currently uses Realtek ALC889. This review compares the ALC889 with a ASUS Xonar D1 and (effectively) a top-end X-Fi, using reference headphones.

I don't imagine the sound output of the Aegos will be quite as good as reference headphones - but it will still be very good. You will certainly hear a big difference with a decent sound card.
 
Hard to say Sturmtruppe. It's an old card now, 12 years maybe. A sound card, even an older one of 10 years ago should have the edge, but some feel HD onboard audio has passed cards like the SB Live!
 
Ive got an old audigy se, bought on mm here on ocuk, it normaly runs in my old athlon s939 rig, i tried it against the onboard sound on my current asus p6t deluxe v2, the motherboards sound was way ahead, but not great. I bought myself an asus xonar DX pcie soundcard to replace the sound on the p6t deluxe. I only use the card with my headphones, (goldring ns1000's), sounds fantastic, i only use headphones now as they show up how bad my creative i-trigue 3330 2.1 speakers are.
 
Well, one thing you can tell the difference between these two(onboard soundcard and seperate audio card) is SNR. Most seperate audio cards come with high SNR about 105dB while 88dB of onboard soundcard.
 
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