USB soundcards

[RAIDeon]

I've been wondering how much extra load these things will put on the cpu compared w/ onboard solutions that come on most motherboards. They appear to be hardware controled, but wouldn't there be CPU cycles used up because of the extra load on the USB?

 

[EeyoreX]

I don't know how much overhead these would use, but they certainly would use some. However, with CPUs at 2GHz and up it hardly seems to matter all that much IMO. Unless you feel the need to get the highest benchmark scores anyhow...

\Dan

 

[RAIDeon]

after doing some digging, apparently only the creative labs USB soundcards have hardware acceleration.