Realtek 889a vs VIA VT1828s vs Realtek 888

[czajunia]

Hello,

Before reading a P55 mobos review at The TechReport I though that Realtek 889a and VIA VT1828s should perform the same but it looks like 889a scores a point better in almost all of the RightMark Audio Analyzer benchmark. I am not familiar with RightMark and don't know if the scores have any relevance to normal use. Do you know if the difference between two chips can be audible in every day use?

Also, how does VT1828s compare to the older Realtek 888 and is that true that I should avoid VIA codecs?

Thanks a lot in advance for your answers and suggestions.

 

[lopri]

It is hard to judge on-board sound by the chipsets because design of the PCB can affect quality of sound as much as the chip itself. VIA received some bad reps regarding its sound logic, but today's VIA codecs are just as capable as those of Realtek.

IMO it's better to judge the sound quality per board instead of per codecs, unless a certain codec is known to be a trouble.

 

[Deanodarlo]

As Lopri said, can be motherboard dependant. I tend to use my experience and ears as a judge, rather than just benchmarks. Another factor is if you are using analog or digital outputs. Integrated sound solutions tend to have horrible analog outputs, but not too bad digital. That's because dedicated cards tend to have better DACS and circuits for the analog out.

I can say many things about Realtek, and not all good, but many reviews seem to score them highly these days. The chip and it's specs seem to get a lot of attention for being good, the drivers reasonable in benchmarks, but the software is very important. The software has a lot of features, but some things just annoy me so much.

Realtek in XP - their software icon is horrible. A blocky pixilated orange blob? Why haven't they changed it - looks so unprofessional.

Their drivers and control panel - annoying. They update their drivers every flippin second week or something, and I still don't have a clue what they are changing. The control panel only has one setting that sounds good - the "Rock" preset equaliser. Leaving it on all the time distorts certain sounds in a way that you don't always want or interferes with other programs eqalisers and settings. With the equalizer switched off, MP3's all sound like junk. Muffled, dull, tiny and lifeless. This is through the Analog output as I don't have a digital receiver.

As mentioned above, dedicated soundcards sound so much better for analog sound, especially recent ones. An older Audigy 2 ZS blew away the 889A, and even an ancient live sounded better. But perhaps I've just had some poor integrated motherboards from Gigabyte and Asus - the two brands I've tried the codec on. And perhaps their digital out is much better.

I can't speak for VIA as I've never used their recent onboard sound. Realtek has some neat features, seems ok in games and certain video playback scenarios, but MP3's and other situations suck.

 

[czajunia]

lopri - it makes sense that a bad implementation of even the best codec won't give stunning results. So it looks like the only way to tell is by testing a specific board which probably won't make life any easier As for VIA, I kind of expected that these were just myths originated somewhere in the past - cheers for clarifing.

Deanodarlo - I don't think that I will buy a dedicated sound card unless the sound quality on a new mobo is unbereable. I have been using an older Gigabyte P35 mobo with 889 codec for some time and was quite happy with it. Also the quality of analog output was comparable with the digital output ran through my Onkyo system. So if I can't hear the difference I won't bother. I just wasn't sure how good VIA was and if there was any difference between 889 and 888.

Thanks for your input!