onboard vs x-fi xtremegamer

[Fayd]

dunno if this is the right place for it, but nothing in the computer section had "audio".

so...

i already have an x-fi xtremegamer PCI sound card.

using windows vista x64.

i just bought a gigabyte MA790X-UD4P. one distinct advantage is optical audio out, which my x-fi doesnt have. makes hooking up my computer to my sound system MUCH easier. the way i have hooked up now is 3x stereo to RCA cables running from the back of the computer up to the receiver.

i already know vista breaks a good portion of EAX, or at least makes it harder to use. for sound quality's sake, will i be better off keeping the gamer, or will i not notice the difference and just use the onboard for simplicity's sake?


for information's sake, my sound system is an onkyo 5.1 HTIB. (i think it's HTSP-904) most of the time, tho, i just use headphones plugged in the front.

 

[zerocool84]

For sound quality of course your X-Fi is going to sound better. I have onboard Realtek sound as well and yes they are great and sound infinitely better than onboards use to but won't match the quality of your X-Fi.

 

[Modelworks]

Outputting from optical will be just as good/better as the xifi. When you use digital out the chipset outputs the stream as it gets it from windows so the quality of the chipset isn't much of a factor . The DAC on the sound card/chipset are not even used. Realteks chipsets have an almost pure path to the output if you make sure to not turn on any processing like EQ or effects in the menus. In some ways it will be better because optical prevents noise generated inside the pc case from all the circuits from entering the audio stream and being carried out via line out cables.

I only use digital connections now for sound regardless of sound card installed.

 

[mmntech]

The X-FI is going to be a better card but it really depends on what you're hooking it up too. An AV receiver over analogue, good headphones, or good PC speakers; then it will make a difference.

Creative's X-FI cards aren't the best. I think you might be better off going with a C-Media CMI8770 chipset or better. Something like the HT Omega Striker, which is an excellent card for only $90 at the Egg. Apparently they blow X-FI out of the water in terms of sound quality. They just don't fully support EAX. Not an issue though since most games have moved to OpenAL, Dolby Digital, and DTS based surround sound.

 

[MStele]

All the bells and whistles aside, the biggest benefit to using a dedicated card versus integrated is that integrated uses the cpu to process audio, whereas with dedicated the card does it. If your using two channel sound than the difference isn't very large but if your doing 5.1+ which is what your talking about, you performance hit becomes much more pronounced with onboard. Personally, I would stick to your X-fi. BTW, your X-fi does have optical out. If you look at your card one of the speaker ports is red when the computer is running. You just need to get the adapter from creative that allows you to use a standard optical cable.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

All the bells and whistles aside, the biggest benefit to using a dedicated card versus integrated is that integrated uses the cpu to process audio, whereas with dedicated the card does it. If your using two channel sound than the difference isn't very large but if your doing 5.1+ which is what your talking about, you performance hit becomes much more pronounced with onboard. Personally, I would stick to your X-fi. BTW, your X-fi does have optical out. If you look at your card one of the speaker ports is red when the computer is running. You just need to get the adapter from creative that allows you to use a standard optical cable.

Agreed!

OP, all you need is one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Sound.../dp/B002DS2IRA

I have two X-Fi equipped PCs, and the Sound Blaster Digital I/O Module allows me to output digital sound into my Yamaha receiver...

 

[Fayd]

Agreed!

OP, all you need is one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Sound.../dp/B002DS2IRA

I have two X-Fi equipped PCs, and the Sound Blaster Digital I/O Module allows me to output digital sound into my Yamaha receiver...

i've looked into that. and the x-fi xtremegamer only supports 2 channel stereo over digital out.

 

[Fayd]

All the bells and whistles aside, the biggest benefit to using a dedicated card versus integrated is that integrated uses the cpu to process audio, whereas with dedicated the card does it. If your using two channel sound than the difference isn't very large but if your doing 5.1+ which is what your talking about, you performance hit becomes much more pronounced with onboard. Personally, I would stick to your X-fi. BTW, your X-fi does have optical out. If you look at your card one of the speaker ports is red when the computer is running. You just need to get the adapter from creative that allows you to use a standard optical cable.

fwiw, i'm running with a quad core at 3 ghz. i dont think the onboard sound processing is gonna be all that much for me.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

i've looked into that. and the x-fi xtremegamer only supports 2 channel stereo over digital out.

Sorry to bring up an old thread, but... crippling digital output? wow, way to go Creative! what idiots! and this comes from a fan of (some of) their products...

 

[OVerLoRDI]

I'm sure others above have said this but the sound quality will be probably the same. With a digital pass through to a receiver your sound card really isn't doing much of anything.

The difference in quality on sound cards comes down to their ability to convert digital sound to analog sound and then amplify it. In the DAC department your X-Fi will likely be better due to higher quality analog parts. Not that creative's analog components are good... but they are probably better than on board. Also the X-Fi is a separate card which gives the analog components some breathing room so that they don't catch quite as much interference from the motherboard circuitry. Then there are the amplifiers on the cards that take the analog signal and "pump" it to your headphones/speakers. The creative X-Fi uses mediocre amps, but again I'm willing to wager that they are the same or better than the onboard sound.

That is my rant about sound quality, enjoy.

 

[CentricStorm]

i've looked into that. and the x-fi xtremegamer only supports 2 channel stereo over digital out.

Spreading false information on the internet now? D:

Funny because over a year ago I used to use my X-Fi Xtreme Gamer to output 5.1 audio over S/PDIF via its flexijack digital output.
All you need is this $5 Dolby Digital Live Pack to enable your sound card to encode all sound in to Dolby Digital. Whatever sound is being output over the analogue outputs will be encoded in to Dolby Digital on the fly and output over the optical connector, so this means it works for everything; games, films, music - the optical output will be true 5.1 surround sound without needing the source to be encoded in Dolby Digital.

If you do not have the Dolby Digital Live Pack, then you will of course only be able to output stereo sound over the sound card's optical output, or pass through 5.1 sound that is already encoded in Dolby Digital, which is basically only DVD or Blu-ray film. :hmm:

In case you didn't know, newer X-Fi cards like the X-Fi Titanium are able to encode and output 5.1 Dolby Digital audio via optical from purchase because they come with that Dolby Digital Live software out of the box. ^_^

 

[Fallen Kell]

The stereo over optical out is standard for non-movie content. Surround sound requires a Dolby Digital or DTS encoded audio stream, which standard computer audio is only encoded in wav format. Even the surround sound of games is encoded in wav format using multiple stereo interfaces to output the audio into "gaming speakers". The only way to have surround sound from everything on a PC is to have a sound card which supports "DD Live" or "DTS Live" encoding on the board which converts those multiple stereo outputs into a Dolby Digital or DTS surround sound bitstream.

 

[alcoholbob]

There is no crippling, the current optical transport standard only supports bandwidth equivalent to 2 channels of digital audio (pcm).

Dolby Digital Live is a lossy solution, limiting your bandwidth to 112kb/s per ch. That means cd redbook audio would have 85% of it's bandwidth compressed.