Onboard options vs. Expansion cards

[HerbalKiller]

I just bought an Asus 87N8X Deluxe. on board USB 2.0, Firewire, LAN, and 5.1 Digital sound. I have a SB live 5.1 card already. Is the sound on the motherboard just as quality as the SBLive? It won't support EAX I don't think. Should I install my card and not do the onboard sound? Any ideas?

Also, which is faster USB 2.0 or Firewire? I am asking for connection of external hard drive.

When should we start seeing Serial ATA Hard drives?

Thanks for the info.

HK

 

[stebesplace]

USB 2.0 480 Mbps
USB 1.1 12 Mbps
Firewire (IEEE1394) 400 Mbps
Parallel Port 1 Mbps
Serial Port 0.115 Mbps

Serial ATA should rear its head around summer, or late summer, but like many things, with time comes better stability.

Use your SB 5.1 card instead, with eax and drivers, it will be better. Its fine to use the other connecting ports on the motherboard.

-Steve

 

[Hender]

USB 2.0 is theoretically faster than Firewire on paper, but repeated tests have shown that Firewire is faster in the real world.

As for the sound card., I'd disagree with stebesplace. 3D Sound Source (I think that's the name) recently did a through comparison on the nForce2 audio to the Audigy or Audigy2, and they found that it was largely comparable. If you want to read the article, do a search of the forums here and you can find the link somewhere. It was within the last couple of weeks that it came out. Ditch the old Live and go with the onboard sound, it should be better in the long run. The Live has a lot of problems associated with it, driver quality and bloated software in particular.

 

[HerbalKiller]

Hmmm.... ok, so I guess Firewire is my answer over USB 2.0 but I am still rather confused on the Soundcard deal.

HK

 

[Hender]

Well, the nForce2 APU does 5.1 sound, plus it does EAX like the Live. The Live won't do the latest version EAX that's found in the Audigy cards, and the onboard sound was reviewed as being very high quality. I'd say use what you paid for with the sound.

 

[Hender]

And one thing you should think about if you're buying external peripherals is that more people have USB2 than Firewire, pretty much. USB2 has more market exposure, the cables are cheaper, and there are probably more peripherals for that interface. Firewire is definitely better, though. Sort of a catch-22.

 

[jkath29]

Use the onboard sound. The sound is my favorite part of my A7N8X DLX, it's great. One thing to keep in mind when comparing nForce2 sound is the difference between MCP2 and MCP2-T. While the MCP2 isn't quite that great, the Soundstorm technology used on the MCP2-T will make it perform about like an Audigy card. The A7N8X DLX uses the MCP2-T.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: jkath29
Use the onboard sound. The sound is my favorite part of my A7N8X DLX, it's great. One thing to keep in mind when comparing nForce2 sound is the difference between MCP2 and MCP2-T. While the MCP2 isn't quite that great, the Soundstorm technology used on the MCP2-T will make it perform about like an Audigy card. The A7N8X DLX uses the MCP2-T.

I agree, use the on-board sound. You won't have to worry about some flaky soundblaster driver