Onboard sound or old sound card?

[Extelleron]

I have an old soundcard here- a "Sound Blaster Live!", model # CT4870. I'm going to be purchasing a DFI Ultra-D and need to know what would be better, the onboard sound or the card I have.

Thanks.

[grohl]

I've never had anything but problems with onboard sound. Sound corruption, CPU draining, etc. Maybe things are better with modern boards, but I gave up on onboard sound solutions about 2 yrs ago.

[Bobthelost]

They are both rather crap to be frank ;)

Having said that the card will probably be slightly better. As to problems? I've had more trouble from my soundcard than any other part in my system, (Audigy 2 ZS) while onboard has never let me down yet, of course the sound quality is much better so it's worth the hastle in my eyes.

[HiME]

install it and see if it's giving you any problems, install latest drivers... if there are no problem with the sound card, compare them by using software like Everest

[RussianSensation]

Had onboard sound with XP platform back in the days, and now have onboard sound on Abit IS7 S478. Both were inferior to most basic Live! (when it worked) in terms of speed and especially in terms of sound. Just try out the onboard sound and if you dissasfied you can always buy a better sound card.

[0roo0roo]

the live

[mwmorph]

both are about equal and will use about equal audio cpu process consumption. The onboard might actually be slightly better depending on what audio module you have(new onboard sound is actually quite adequate). The main problem with onboard sound is that mounted on the motherbard, there may be some sound interference from the other components being so nearby, but the DFI uses a Karajan module which means a Realtek audio decoding chip on a riser to solve those problems. Overall, both should be equal.

[markkleb]

Also it matters what speakers ur using. If their good try and use a 24 bit soundcard. Creative makes one now that is only $30 and I have had good luck with it so far.

[StrangerGuy]

The best onboard audio, from my experience, is still worse than SB Live in terms of sound quality.