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SB Live 5.1 or onboard 5.1 Realtek codec from nforce2 chipset

jvang125

Senior member
I'm sure the sound quality between them would be hard to tell but which one offers better 3d position in games and better utilization from current games? and since the realtek is onboard, would that give a little performance boost over using a seperate pci card like the SB? if they're performance was about the same, i was thinking of selling it and reinvesting it into something else like, a stick of 256 DDR or a faster burner.
 
Nforce is better than the SB-Live in 3D positioning and performance. If you are a little bit of an audiophile you will notice the not so great dynamic range of the realtek codec but only with good HiFi equiptment or an oscilloscope, common mortals like us probably wouldn't hear it with our consumer grade speakers.
 
you guys are talking about the MCP-T nforce2 chipset with APU (audio processing unit) right? well my m/b only has the MCP with no APU and therefore uses only the Realtek ALC650 Codec. I heard this is a pretty cheap codec but the one with APU is comparable to an Audigy 2. so would this alc650 still be better than my SB live 5.1?
 
I think all nForce2 mobos have the APU (sound storm). The nforce2 sound will be better. BTW, isn't the Realtek ALC650 6 channel?
 
Originally posted by: randumb
I think all nForce2 mobos have the APU (sound storm). The nforce2 sound will be better. BTW, isn't the Realtek ALC650 6 channel?

I think your wrong! went through this debate long ago in Nforcershq forums and even had an nvidia engineer chime in on it. The MCP2 south bridge does not support the Soundstorm APU. Only the MCP2-T southbridge includes the soundstorm APU. Boards equipped with the MCP2 south bridge use the Realtek ALC650 codec for all their audio features. While the Realtek is 6 channel capable you will lose mic and line in jacks doing it. The Live is a better solution than the ALC650 codec in my opinion. I used it for a while and found it far inferior to My Santa Cruz moreso than any Live card i have used.
 
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