Realtek ACL892 onboard sound okay for gaming

[nine9s]

I am building a new system next week. I am getting the Asus Z77 Pro motherboard which has Realtek ACL892 onboard sound. I do not listen to music on my PC nor watch TV/movies. My main sound use will be for gaming. I use 7.1 Creative Inspire speakers - no headphones. I do not listen to volume very loud - just moderate levels. Only concern is that I like to hear 3d / positional sound, so if it does that, I am happy.

Is the Realtek ACL891 pretty good for what I want?

 

[billyb0b]

yes, you'll be fine with the onboard sound

 

[weez82]

best way to answer that question is to test it out when you get it.

 

[mfenn]

Yes, it will do positional sound just fine. Make sure you have Windows and games set to 7.1.

HOWEVER, a $225 mobo is very likely extreme overkill for your gaming needs. What features in particular do you need from a mobo?

 

[nine9s]

Already bought the motherboard. I liked that it had PCI slots still. Easy over-clocking, even auto over-clocking with auto benchmarking and adjusting BIOS on its own (I have never really been into over-clocking, so I figured it would be good to start and learn since it will auto-overclock including adjusting voltages clocks, benchmarking all on its own for ~15-20% increase.) Intel LAN. Plenty of USB 3.0 and Sata 6.0 ports. Quality components. And I got it for $200.

 

[mfenn]

You overpaid. The only thing missing from the ASRock board is an Intel NIC, but you'd be very hard pressed to come up with a situation where that actually matters on a desktop machine.