Would onboard audio be any good???

[Lombardaga]

Does the onboard audio on mobos sound pretty good/sufficient???

 

[AndrewR]

For what? It depends on what you do and what you like. If you are only listening to CDs or WAVs for Windows event sounds, then it would be fine. For gaming, you'll want something else (no 3D positioning, lower quality sound reproduction) and definitely for sound editing, you'll want something else.

 

[BoberFett]

For somebody who just wants to hear sounds, they're fine. If it's a gamer who wants 3D sound, someone that wants to play DVDs with surround, or any higher requirements such as these, shy away from onboard audio. Even if it's acceptable now, it will go to waste when they want to upgrade their sound.

 

[snow patrol]

Well you can always disable the onboard sound if you wish to upgrade to a better sound card in the future. I find that onboard sound is perfectly acceptable - it'll play all your MP3's/CDs/game sounds etc with a good quality. It won't however, as Bober mentioned, give you any 3d sound enhancements such as EAX or A3D. If you're not to fussed about that though, then by all means on board is a good compromise (and cheaper of course!).

 

[Erasmus-X]

It depends on what type of onboard sound it is. Integrated Crystal Semiconductors and Creative Labs PCI chips aren't too bad if you're not big on gaming. But I wouldn't recommend using the AC97 codec to anyone. It has horrible sound quality and it skips a lot with heavy CPU load.

 

[Shagga]

These boards are best suited for what the guyz say and servers....

 

[PowerJoe]

I'm happy with my onboard CMI8738 - MP3s sound good (tested with good headphones). It claims to support A3D 1, as well as 4-speaker and SPDIF out (motherboard has pins, but I don't have the actual connectors), but I haven't tested any of these. I see no reason to buy anything else.

-PJ

 

[SSP]

I'm happy with my onboard sound on my K7M. My system's connected to a 200Watt amplifier with 2 Sony 3 way 175 Watt speakers.
I use the same setup for gaming.

BTW - I'd still get an add in sound card to keep the CPU usage to a minimum.

 

[JiNk]

I have the AC97, not only does it eat cpu resources, kill that whole not skipping idea, it distorts like a bitch (don't even try to add bass *lol*)