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Onboard vs Peripheral - LAN, Sound

K

kindlr

Member
OK, so I'm just about done building my new system. The motherboard is an MSI K8N Neo4/SLI. Comes with Gigabit ethernet and onboard SB Live! 24 bit audio. Left over from previous builds I have a SB Audigy card (first generation) and a number of 100Mbps ethernet cards. The speaker's I'm using are Logitech Z560s, so better sound is good, but lower CPU utilization is even better. I'm on a 100Mbps router, so the gigabit capability does me no good.

Short version, what is less CPU intensive, and is there a noticable sound difference?
SB Live! 24-bit onboard vs. SB Audigy (1) PCI
Gigabit ethernet onboard vs. 100 Mbps PCI ethernet
 
I'd take the Audigy over integrated sound.

I've been using onboard ethernet for several years with no problems, but I don't know if adding a card would make any difference.
 
1 more vote for the audigy.

I haven't see any difference between onboard and discrete ethernet controllers either. Using the onboard "might" save you a microscopically small amount of power consumed.
 
get a soundcard

dont get a lan card

different sound cards actually effect the sound quality and features

all lan cards/chips are exactly the same
 
The "onboard" is really jsut the PCI chip soldered to the mobo. No mroe CPU than a normal card. I'd go for onboard.

LAN, use the nVidia LAN.
 
What about the regular Neo4 non-platinum SLI board? It lacks dual gigabit LAN and 2 SATAII ports (only has 4), but you won't be using them anyways. It's about $30 cheaper.
 
Everything I listed has been purchased already, either as part of this new system or just lying around in my spare parts pile. Thanks guys, went with the Audigy card and onboard NIC.
 
Some / many (not sure) new motherboards run the LAN separately from the PCI bus (instead of acting like a soldered-on PCI LAN card, it has its own dedicated connection to the chipset). This is less of an issue with 100Mb/sec LAN, but gigabit ethernet can easily come near to filling up the 133MB/sec of the PCI bus, which causes unhealthy competition with anything else that happens to be on said PCI bus. Hence, use the onboard LAN. If you need decent sound quality and lower CPU utilization in games, then outboard sound is definitely to be preferred. Keep the Audigy (well, I'd replace it due to the 24 bit non-support, but I'm more of a music-listening type than a gaming freak). :thumbsup:
 
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