On-board audio VS PCI audio?

[Rick67]

I would assume that a PCI audio card like the Creative Audigy Gamer or the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz would offer better sound and features then mobos with on-board audio. If a seperate audio card is better, how much better and is it worth it?

Lets compare Realtek AC97 six channel on-board audio to a PCI sound card like the Santa Cruz (this is the card I'm considering). Which is better and is it even really noticable to someone who isn't an audiophile?

Also, does on-board audio use less resources?

Just so you know, I don't watch DVD movies on my PC and most of the time I use if for games and surfing. While playing games I prefer to use a good set of headphones.

Any input would be appreciated!

Thanks,

 

[KGB1]

Just so you know, I don't watch DVD movies on my PC and most of the time I use if for games and surfing. While playing games I prefer to use a good set of headphones.

You answered your own question there my friend. An Audigy or a Turtle Beach (I ordered one this week) is not for the faint of heart. These two "music synthesizers" are for people with INSANE 5.1 sound systems (audio philes as they are reffered to) and people who want to hook up their sound cards into a personal DVD system. I use a ISA ESS 688 soundcard and its perfect for anything.

Mind you the Turtle beach uses up almost NO resources from the CPU (while the onboard realtek 5.1 and audigy do)
Another side not neither does the ISA sound card, since ISA goes directly to memory to execute in HDD/CDROM.

Its like; why buy a Ferrari to mow the lawn?

(Damn I suck at analogies)

 

[Kingofcomputer]

You cannot compare this way.

Realtek AC97 6ch is not a sound card/sound processor, it's just the codec for your motherboard's chipset embedded sound engine.

All sound card has a codec, either built into the processor chip (a single chip solution) or by separate codec chip.

mainly 3 types of sound solution:
1. sound card with processor chip + codec. example: sb live
2. motherboard with the same sound chip from a sound card. example: asus motherboard with cmedia 8738 chip
3. motherboard chipset embedded sound engine + codec chip. example: motherboard using VIA southbridge or Intel ICH's sound engine + Realtek codec chip.

some motherboard chipset embedded sound engines just provide basic audio, but some provide more features and are more powerful like nvidia nforce.
some sound cards provides tons of features and power, but some just provide basic sound (even using your cpu power like winmodem/softmodem) like using ESS solo chip.

 

[Peter]

kingofcomputer has it right. The main concern today is PCI bandwidth usage. Advanced PCI sound cards require lots of bandwidth there, and might act up if you have other bandwidth hungry stuff like USB 2.0 or IDE RAID controllers there. Chipset integrated sound is on the fast chipset internal bus, not eating into PCI bandwidth at all.

As for CPU load, it all depends on what the sound solution is like, not on where it is. There are just as many stupid and intelligent PCI sound devices as there are stupid and intelligent chipset integrated ones.

On the analog signal quality front on onboard audio, chipset integrated solutions with separate codecs are easier to handle than PCI sound chips ... that's because you can place a codec in an insulated spot without any high frequency digital signal nearby, while a PCI chip obviously needs to be on the PCI bus.

So if you get chipset sound engine combined with a decent six channel codec (Realtek, C-Media, VIA), it might well leave nothing to be desired. On the other hand, even the most expensive PCI sound card might disappoint you if you don't have the PCI bandwidth to spare.

regards, Peter

 

[Rick67]

So if you had to choose between the GA-8IHXP2 Realtek AC97 6 channel on-board audio and a sound card like the Santa Cruz (which I think is only 5.1) or Audigy Gamer, which one would you choose? I've heard the Audigy is a resource hog. I just don't want to buy a sound card if I don't have to.

Thanks for all the info guys!

 

[Peter]

Intel's chipset integrated sound engine is quite a CPU hog (unsurprisingly, they want to sell expensive CPUs not bloody chipsets ), but on the other hand you're off the PCI bus with all that sound traffic. This is particularly important with i850E because it has a performance issue in feeding PCI cards that read from RAM a lot, which obviously is true for sound cards.

Now since with a modern CPU, you'll hardly notice the amount taken by sound processing, I'd say stick with the onboard solution. I don't know how good Gigabyte's analog circuitry is though.

regards, Peter

 

[Zap]

You answered your own question there my friend.

KGB is right. You don't have need of anything that does more than stereo sound if you're using headphones, plus any CPU usage is negligible with modern processors being so fast. The last two sound cards I purchased were for Abit motherboards that did not have integrated audio (BX133-RAID and KG7-RAID). Other than that, I've been using integrated audio for everything. When I attend LAN parties, I use headphones and at home I use a stereo system with only one pair of bookshelf speakers. No need for anything better, IMO. "Quality" wise few people would hear a difference.

 

[Mem]

There`s really only two main reasons not to use onboard sound,one is sound quality but the Realtek is pretty good and sound quality is always down to the user,the second is driver quality,if you`re having problems with sound in gaming then it would be a good idea to think of using a good PCI sound card.

Nowadays the quality of onboard sound and drivers have improved quite a bit,I think you`ll be happy with the onboard sound,my advice is to try it and test it out over a few weeks on both sound quality and gaming and then decide if you`re happy with the results.You`ve nothing to lose and probably save you the money of buying a PCI sound card.

 

[Blain]

I have been using the C-Media 8738 onboard sound option on my KK266+ R, ever since I set it up. I've been quite happy with the its sound quality. But a true sound freaks may want to look at the AOpen AX4B 533 Tube for their onboard sound needs.