onboard audio question

[rerickson]

I just placed my order for a much needed upgrade as my current rig is 4.5 yrs old and have a question about on board audio. So back when I built my current rig on board audio was cpu heavy and didn't sound that great. I've read that both of these issues have gotten better as todays on board audio has less cpu overhead and sounds decent enough for at least gaming. I am no audiophile nor will this be used for music play back. My main use will be 2 channel gaming.

I have a Audigy 2 (non zs) that I'm thinking about re-installing to my new build however I plan on buying Supreme Commander and a quick trip to the tech support forums for SupComm reveals many users having issues with this card 🙁 My budget didn't allow for a new soundcard so I'm stuck wondering this:

Since I'm not using 5.1 audio I'm not using EAX does that mean I'm not really going to see much of a difference in cpu cycles by using the on board audio or hear much of a difference either? The mobo on the way is a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L TIA Robert

 

[PurdueRy]

I doubt you will hear a difference between the two. Especially on what I Assume are fairly cheap computer speakers.

 

[rerickson]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
I doubt you will hear a difference between the two. Especially on what I Assume are fairly cheap computer speakers.

Guilty as charged. They are Logitech's X-240 2.1 system.

 

[vanvock]

I use on-board with the same speakers or mostly headphones & It's fine with me

 

[Slugbait]

Your mobo has the RealTek ALC888, which is generally regarded as "pretty darn good", and it's Vista-certified. You shouldn't see much of a hit on your clock cycles.

 

[rerickson]

Originally posted by: vanvock
I use on-board with the same speakers or mostly headphones & It's fine with me

Do you mean it sounds fine like in general? or that you play SupCom and the onboard audio sounds fine to you? Thanks for your reply 🙂

 

[rerickson]

Originally posted by: Slugbait
Your mobo has the RealTek ALC888, which is generally regarded as "pretty darn good", and it's Vista-certified. You shouldn't see much of a hit on your clock cycles.

Sounds good however reviews of SupCom shows that it is a very CPU/RAM/Video hungry game and it may sound petty but every little bit of optimization that I can do with what I could afford I want to seek out is all. I'll bet if I did a real world side by side I wouldn't be able to tell while playing SupCom if it was with or without my sound card though eh? Maybe I'm OCDing? 🙂

 

[j0j081]

I asked the same thing a while ago and seems onboard is probably fine for most things although it still does have more cpu overhead than an addon card but cpus are so fast now compared to a few years ago it prob doesn't even matter.