Does anyone else just use the onboard sound chip on their mobo?

[cardshark828]

I wouldn't for a moment suggest that onboard is better than a potent sound card and external speaker setup, but I'm happy with my current setup. I just have a razer carcharias headset which plugs in to the front audio ports on my case. This uses the basic Realtek HD sound chip which is built into basically every asus motherboard. I've never really felt the need to buy a separate Creative (etc) sound card. I was just wondering how common this is. Does anyone else use onboard sound and is happy with it?

 

[Ross Ridge]

Very few people bother to install sound cards in their system. I wouldn't be suprised if there are more home PCs with no speakers, no headphones, at all than use add-in sound cards.

 

[Anubis]

i do now. I was using on older Creative card. XFI X Gamer ive had it forever. i stopped using it a month or so ago because i moved to a Xfire setup and the card will no longer fit in my mobo with 2 GFX cards as its a PCI card

i notice absolutely no difference in sound using the onboard realtek HD stuff

 

[Shack70]

Using a card vs onboard sound will reduce CPU processing power, so for most common users there is no use to adding a card. For gamers though it might be a way to squeeze a few more fps out of a game.

 

[HeXen]

not many games use hardware anymore, but theres plenty of cpu power for audio these days. its not 2003.

 

[Anubis]

EAX is really the only benefit to using a card today and most people don't care about that

 

[HeXen]

even realtek does eax i do believe. just not 5.0 i think. which hardly any developers really support. but eax isnt all that anyhow imo. Crystalizer just brightens the highs. I have the titanium fatal1ty, but i'll never upgrade to card again. once its not supported i'll toss it. onboard is pretty darn good these days.

 

[Soundmanred]

HDMI audio to a 7.1 reciever. I have no need for a sound card.

 

[Bryf50]

I was using an older Audigy 2 ZS up until a few months ago. But with my latest build it kept causes blue screens. I switched to my onboard and I do think I liked the sound of the Audigy better but its not enough to make me buy an new sound card.

 

[kornphlake]

I haven't used a sound card since integrated audio became standard on new motherboards, what's that about 10 years?

 

[zerocool84]

Using a card vs onboard sound will reduce CPU processing power, so for most common users there is no use to adding a card. For gamers though it might be a way to squeeze a few more fps out of a game.

With how powerful systems are today, there is literally less than a 1% difference now-a-days. Back in the day used to be true but there is absolutely no noticeable difference at all any more.

 

[Spicedaddy]

Haven't used a stand-alone sound card since I sold my Hercules Gametheater XP like 7 years ago. I just use headphones with the Realtek onboard.

 

[x26]

I haven't used a sound card since integrated audio became standard on new motherboards, what's that about 10 years?

Same here

 

[Born2bwire]

I use onboard now. There isn't much benefit to using a separate card anymore. Few if any games support features like EAX and that has become emulated via software. I do miss the attention that was once placed on positioning and environmental effects.

 

[gevorg]

The days of Soundblaster MP3+ are gone.

For general audio (gaming, youtube, etc) I use HDMI out to my TV/AVR that also takes the audio.

For high quality audio (lossless music) I use USB DAC.

 

[Rhoxed]

Using the realteck onboard with Optical Out and the Dolby Prologic IIx setting, I notice no difference from my old soundcard .

 

[CFP]

I don't know, I'm using a USB DAC, and I swear it sounds better...

 

[Born2bwire]

The days of Soundblaster MP3+ are gone.

For general audio (gaming, youtube, etc) I use HDMI out to my TV/AVR that also takes the audio.

For high quality audio (lossless music) I use USB DAC.

Actually, I completely forgot. I'm using the digital out for the most part so I'm using an external DAC.

 

[soulcougher73]

I dont use a sound card. The onboard audio is fine and saves me a few bucks buying another component.

 

[Plugers]

I use onboard, or a USB DAC depending on which speakers I'm listening to.


Although I did just pick up an old Audigy2 card to set up whole home audio with ( you can have 4 separate zones using some software and the KX drivers)

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

still use SB x-fi for the 5.25" drive bay outputs.

 

[Swampthing]

have a titanium fatality. Hate the freakin thing. Constant buzz until i switch to a different mode and switch back. Not much else out there for options but i need the rca hookups on the breakout box for running my hd500 into it.

 

[Tiamat]

yup, if you have a motherboard that doesn't add much noise through the onboard sound, it works fine. My laptop, on the other hand, needed an external usb soundcard because it injected a ton of wierd pops/noises into the audio output.

 

[bobdole369]

Onboard with my main rig. Intel dx38bt - has the Dolby Home Theater features (which allow for time alignment and individual channel adjustment - aka basic room correction). Its far better than my needs, and I use a USB DAC with a homebuilt headphone amp and a pair of decent sennheiser headphones for music.

For the HTPC its a gigabyte Realtek alc889 job - I've auditioned a couple of sound cards and there isn't one that sounds better or gives me anything that the onboard one does just fine.

Heres some actual test data on my particular board. Remember that every motherboard is different (They all have a different trace pattern and op-amps onboard)- And that once you approach 100db SNR there really isn't anything your ear can hear. When it comes to sound quality - you want razor flat response and as low of a noise floor as possible. at 16bit/44khz my onboard sound is competitive.

http://www.runtome.com/2010/10/rmaa-hd-audio-realtek-alc889a.html

Contrast this with RMAA results on an external "pro" audio interface on the same guys blog:

http://www.runtome.com/2010/10/rmaa-phase-24-fw.html


My point is that there really isn't such a cut-and-dried thing as "better" or "worse" if you compare onboard to a PCI or USB card. Each case is different. Luckily lots of folks have standardized on RMAA as a measuring tool and test data from real-world cases is very available.

 

[Modelworks]

If you are using the realtek digital output there is zero difference between the data on the pc and what comes out the spdif ports as long as you do not turn on any processing in software. The path is straight from the southbridge into the chipset and out the ports . The only thing the realtek chip does with digital data is combine the clocks and data so they are spdif compliant. No data is resampled or changed. If you turn on software equalizers, enable loudness control or change settings in the OS to effect the output then the stream IS modified and bit errors are introduced. In windows 7 you should go to playback devices and select DISABLE ALL SOUND EFFECTS on the enhancements tab to get bit perfect output.

Here is what the wiring looks like on a typical motherboard.

The difference between audio on board now and in the past is in the past audio chips used the pci bus to receive data and convert that to audio. Now the data is already audio data that is serialized on the HD Audio bus from the motherboards chipset using a bus specifically designed for the audio, that data never enters the pci bus and actually is lower latency than any pci bus card can receive. A pci card has to wait for other cards sharing the bus and then convert the bits to audio data before it can convert that into something the sound card chipset can use. It is an extra step that HD audio bus chips don't have to deal with.