Sound: nForce 2 / SIS-655 (C-Media 9739)

[MJoshi]

Does anyone know which has superior sound - nForce 2 / SIS-655 (C-Media 9737)? There is very little information on the C-Media 9739. I would like to know about the actual sampling rates of the C-Media 9739 and the ADC resolution.

I am planning on going for the MSI 655-Max (FISR) motherboard after comparing the performance with the Asus A7N8X-Deluxe.

I would like good sound quality as I will be doing some editing (I know the nForce 2 chipset has excellent on-board sound, but I am not very familiar with the C-Media used with the SIS-655 chipsets).

 

[AbsolutDealage]

Maybe this post would be better suited to General Hardware, not highly technical.

BTW, if you are looking for premium sound, I would stay away from on-board sound altogether. If you are going to be doing some heavy editing work, get an audigy or something with a decent SNR. I have found that the vast majority of onboard sound is inadequate... even for simple playback.

 

[Jeff7]

1) The 9737 is a codec; it doesn't actually process the sound - that's for another chip. The nForce2 motherboards for instance, use a Realtek ALC-650 chip (or something like that) which is the codec, while the sound processing is done in the MCP-T (I think that's the right acronym) southbridge chip.
2) This thread probably doesn't qualify as being highly technical; maybe General Hardware would be better.

Originally posted by: AbsolutDealage
Maybe this post would be better suited to General Hardware, not highly technical.

BTW, if you are looking for premium sound, I would stay away from on-board sound altogether. If you are going to be doing some heavy editing work, get an audigy or something with a decent SNR. I have found that the vast majority of onboard sound is inadequate... even for simple playback.

Or perhaps not - the nForce and more recently, the nForce2 onboard sound, is supposed to be on par with the quality of the Audigy, if not better. That's if you get the one with the Audio Processing Unit; some boards just use a generic sound chip, and not nVidia's.