What is the best sound chip on motherboards?

[sparks]

I'm almost in the market for a new motherboard and I believe that I can live without a sound card id possible. What sound chip is currently the best one out or are they all basically the same?

 

[Sheninat0r]

Some motherboards from, I think, MSI [check that], come with X-Fi as their integrated sound. That sounds like your best bet unless you want distortiontastic Realtek AC'97.

 

[The Keeper]

I'm a bit curious of this myself too, because I'm going to skip on buying a dedicated sound card. X-Fi's have poor drivers, new Razer and Asus sound cards just costs way too much.

Gigabyte's P35 boards (I have one ordered) have ALC889, which I think should be top class as far as onboard sound chips are concerned, right?

 

[j0j081]

yeah I think the newest Realtek HD audio chips are the 888 and 889 although 883 is meant to be pretty good to. Much better than the old integrated solutions.

 

[Peter]

A lot of the quality in any sound solution is a matter of the mainboard's layout and the choice of analog components around the sound chip. You can always make an awful sounding solution from the best chip available.

Same goes for discrete sound cards of course - just that it's easier there, simply because it's further away from the big sources of digital noise.

 

[jonmcc33]

How can anyone put the letters "HD" with "AC'97"? Being that any chip is on the motherboard and suffers from interference I wouldn't say the sound quality is good on any of them.

 

[badnewcastle]

MSI P6N DIAMOND has onboard X-FI and the drivers work fine. Sounds great awsome.

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: jonmcc33
How can anyone put the letters "HD" with "AC'97"? Being that any chip is on the motherboard and suffers from interference I wouldn't say the sound quality is good on any of them.

Well, for one it isn't inherently impossible to get an onboard sound solution isolated from noise properly. It's just that some mainboard designers aren't exactly trying too hard.

 

[trOver]

just get a cheaper mobo and a dedicated sound card.

ht omega claro ftw

 

[Doclife]

Originally posted by: The Keeper
I'm a bit curious of this myself too, because I'm going to skip on buying a dedicated sound card. X-Fi's have poor drivers, new Razer and Asus sound cards just costs way too much.

Gigabyte's P35 boards (I have one ordered) have ALC889, which I think should be top class as far as onboard sound chips are concerned, right?

I'm using onboard audio of the Gigabyte's P35 motherboard (GA-P35-DS3R, revision 2.0). The onboard audio is superb (I listen to music on my computer a lot). I would say that it is equal to or may be better than the M-Audio revolution 7.1 sound card that I have on the other AMD computer of mine. I think this is the reason why Creative's stock is going down the drain lately. There is absolutely no need to buy a separate sound card when the onboard audio is that good, sound quality wise.

and yes, the onboard audio chip is ALC889A (support Blu-ray/HD DVD audio, 7.1 HD audio output)

 

[Modelworks]

You can put the sound chipset on a card or on the motherboard they are both going to pick up rf noise. The sound chipset on the board might even actually pick up less noise because it is closer to the ground plane.

Anyone ever read the reports on placing a video card and sound card next to each other in a pc case ? Its pretty clear why professional sound cards used for recording usually locate the hardware outside the case of the pc and just use the pc for an interface card.

 

[gba]

Originally posted by: Modelworks
Its pretty clear why professional sound cards used for recording usually locate the hardware outside the case of the pc and just use the pc for an interface card.

yup

 

[j0j081]

anyone know if the ADI AD1988B chip that is one some of the more expensive Asus boards is better than Realteks hd audio solutions? I'm trying to figure out if that is part of the price premium on certain mobos and if it's worth it.

 

[The Keeper]

I dislike ADI chips myself because the drivers for it will be only provided by the motherboard manufacturer. They may not even keep the drivers up-to-date, and it is only matter of time when they will no longer provide BIOS and driver updates for a particular motherboard model.

At least with Realtek, driver updates are pretty much guaranteed.

Originally posted by: Doclife
I'm using onboard audio of the Gigabyte's P35 motherboard (GA-P35-DS3R, revision 2.0). The onboard audio is superb (I listen to music on my computer a lot). I would say that it is equal to or may be better than the M-Audio revolution 7.1 sound card that I have on the other AMD computer of mine. I think this is the reason why Creative's stock is going down the drain lately. There is absolutely no need to buy a separate sound card when the onboard audio is that good, sound quality wise.

and yes, the onboard audio chip is ALC889A (support Blu-ray/HD DVD audio, 7.1 HD audio output)

That is very nice to know, especially when I have just the same model (GA-P35-DS3R) on order.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: jonmcc33
How can anyone put the letters "HD" with "AC'97"?

HD audio (AKA Azalia) is not the same as AC'97. I'm coming from a VIA Envy24T chipset PCI sound card (most recently used) and to my ears using my mid-range stereo pair of speakers, I cannot hear a difference between the VIA chipset card and onboard HD audio.

I'm willing to wager (my old sound card, LOL) that the majority of people will be unable to hear a difference between onboard HD audio and an average (Audigy?) PCI sound card. Of course this needs to be done double blind and using that person's normal listening gear (speakers, headphones, whatnot) and with the output from both solutions normalized and with all equalization off.

 

[j0j081]

so which is better than ADI or Realtek 883 or up?

 

[postmortemIA]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: jonmcc33
How can anyone put the letters "HD" with "AC'97"?

HD audio (AKA Azalia) is not the same as AC'97. I'm coming from a VIA Envy24T chipset PCI sound card (most recently used) and to my ears using my mid-range stereo pair of speakers, I cannot hear a difference between the VIA chipset card and onboard HD audio.

I'm willing to wager (my old sound card, LOL) that the majority of people will be unable to hear a difference between onboard HD audio and an average (Audigy?) PCI sound card. Of course this needs to be done double blind and using that person's normal listening gear (speakers, headphones, whatnot) and with the output from both solutions normalized and with all equalization off.

I could notice BIG difference through pseudo decent speakers (Logitech). In games it is 10x worse with software 3D emulation, it sounds like N64 on mono speaker.

Perhaps it is like every other art, the difference you are not noticing is because you are not good listener?

Even through change from Audigy 2 to X-Fi I've noticed that sound is bit better, more rich.

 

[RanDum72]

Thats why he suggested a double blind test. Knowing that you are going to upgrade from an Audigy 2 to an X-fi by itself already 'conditions' your brain that you are going to see an improvement. If you just have somebody listen to a bunch of computers without them knowing whats running the speakers will erase any 'pre-fabricated' conditioning. Of course, you will notice a difference going from really crappy sound to awesome sound but a decently designed sound card running a decent set of speakers will satisfy 99.9% of anybody's audio needs. Its that 0.1% that are really anal and nitpicky that will NEVER be satisfied..hehe (I happen to be one of them). Like they said, sound quality is subjective.

 

[RanDum72]

Sound quality-wise, ADI had a better reputation for sound quality that Realtek. The older Intel OEM mobos had a reputation for good quality built-in sound because of teh ADI chipset. I don't know if C-media is still alive in the motherboard built-in sound market.
Anybody knw if Cirrus Logic is still making sound chipsets for the PC? I remember when the TurtleBeach Santa Cruz (with Cirrus Logic chipset) gave the Audigy a run for its money in terms of features and sound quality.

 

[Synomenon]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: jonmcc33
How can anyone put the letters "HD" with "AC'97"?

HD audio (AKA Azalia) is not the same as AC'97. I'm coming from a VIA Envy24T chipset PCI sound card (most recently used) and to my ears using my mid-range stereo pair of speakers, I cannot hear a difference between the VIA chipset card and onboard HD audio.

I'm willing to wager (my old sound card, LOL) that the majority of people will be unable to hear a difference between onboard HD audio and an average (Audigy?) PCI sound card. Of course this needs to be done double blind and using that person's normal listening gear (speakers, headphones, whatnot) and with the output from both solutions normalized and with all equalization off.

I could notice BIG difference through pseudo decent speakers (Logitech). In games it is 10x worse with software 3D emulation, it sounds like N64 on mono speaker.

Perhaps it is like every other art, the difference you are not noticing is because you are not good listener?

Even through change from Audigy 2 to X-Fi I've noticed that sound is bit better, more rich.

He said "the majority...". No need to speak up that you're one of the few that can hear the difference.

The ALC88x series from Realtek are more than enough for those who aren't in the professional audio industry and the small number of people of have audiophile ears.

 

[postmortemIA]

Originally posted by: RanDum72
Sound quality-wise, ADI had a better reputation for sound quality that Realtek. The older Intel OEM mobos had a reputation for good quality built-in sound because of teh ADI chipset. I don't know if C-media is still alive in the motherboard built-in sound market.
Anybody knw if Cirrus Logic is still making sound chipsets for the PC? I remember when the TurtleBeach Santa Cruz (with Cirrus Logic chipset) gave the Audigy a run for its money in terms of features and sound quality.

Cirrus still makes DA converters that Creative still uses, but no new sound pc chipsets

BTW Santra Cruz and other CS 4624/4630 based cards are not supported in Vista.

 

[RanDum72]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA

Originally posted by: RanDum72
Sound quality-wise, ADI had a better reputation for sound quality that Realtek. The older Intel OEM mobos had a reputation for good quality built-in sound because of teh ADI chipset. I don't know if C-media is still alive in the motherboard built-in sound market.
Anybody knw if Cirrus Logic is still making sound chipsets for the PC? I remember when the TurtleBeach Santa Cruz (with Cirrus Logic chipset) gave the Audigy a run for its money in terms of features and sound quality.

Cirrus still makes DA converters that Creative still uses, but no new sound pc chipsets

BTW Santra Cruz and other CS 4624/4630 based cards are not supported in Vista.

Well, the SC last drivers was from a few years back and they didn't even guarantee support for winXp SP2 so I have no delusions about Win Vista
BTW, I still have a SC running in a 850E chipset RDRAM system..still sounds great after all these years.

 

[Mgz]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardwa.../xfx_nforce_680i_sli/7

They compares the ALC885, 888 and 889a

from their result the 889a > 888 > 885.

The ADI one from ASUS is faster in general while playing game because it does NOT support EAX.

 

[yehuda]

Gary noted on severel occassions how he likes the 889 better than the 888 and 883. Personally I was pleased with the analog ports on Gigabyte's 690G ATX board, which uses the 889 chip.

The ADI one from ASUS is faster in general while playing game because it does NOT support EAX.

Actually this is to the contrary, at least as far as EAX goes. Analog Devices supports proper EAX 2.0 whereas Realtek does not. See here:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/11171
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/12449

 

[j0j081]

Originally posted by: yehuda
Gary noted on severel occassions how he likes the 889 better than the 888 and 883. Personally I was pleased with the analog ports on Gigabyte's 690G ATX board, which uses the 889 chip.

The ADI one from ASUS is faster in general while playing game because it does NOT support EAX.

Actually this is to the contrary, at least as far as EAX goes. Analog Devices supports proper EAX 2.0 whereas Realtek does not. See here:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/11171
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/12449

that is talking about one of the older Realtek solutions though not the newer 888.