Abit NV7-133R sound quality?

[benhar]

What is your opinion of the on-board sound on the Abit NV7-133R? I'm trying to decide if its good enough to warrant selling my Hercules GTXP and using the MB's sound instead.

 

[Palek]

BUMP!!!

(Sorry, benhar, I've got no answers for you.. )

This is actually something I am also interested in, so I would love to hear what owners have to say about the audio quality of their nForce boards. Right now I am waiting with an upgrade until the next nForce chipset comes out, because I simply cannot trust that VIA is capable of making a relatively reliable chipset.

<EDIT>Oooh, I also am curious about how much CPU time the nForce audio unit uses up. I seem to remember it was far less than AC'97 software codecs, but slighty above Creative products. Do I remember right?</EDIT>

 

[mhick855]

Well i have pro klipsch 5.1 hooked up to my m/b it sounds great to me.I also have a audigy platinum card in the box but no need to put it in.

 

[fivecent]

I own the NV7 and had a Live! before this, my speakers are BA635 2.1
For DVDs, games and CDs, the onboard sound beats the Live! or same.

For wav files and Mp3s, the onboard sound loses to the Live! Mp3 sounds flat and has no depth and cracks once in a blur moon. Wav files has no depth and sounds flat just like the Mp3.

Have not tried using a home theater 5.1 setup to try out the nForce APU DTS encoder coupled with the onboard sound yet, as my gf needed my PC to rush out her AutoCad drawings.

Not sure if about the CPU util, never noticed when I had the Live!

Note that I say onboard sound instead of nForce sound. This is because, nForce APU still needs a sound chip to interface it's data into 5.1 sound. eg cMedia or Realtek, thus the quality of the sound partly or largely lies with how the manufacturer of the motherboard implement the audio. You should try and ask the Asus nForce pple on how their sound is like.

But this is a very stable board. The drivers are great in the sense that the onboard sound, NIC, VGA (if applicable) AGP, IDE controllers, north, south bridge drivers are ROLLED into one driver.. unlike some 4in1s we know...

 

[XMan]

For wav files and Mp3s, the onboard sound loses to the Live! Mp3 sounds flat and has no depth and cracks once in a blur moon. Wav files has no depth and sounds flat just like the Mp3.

I disagree, the sound quality is superb, even with MP3s. I am using the newest (2860) drivers, though.