Anybody else use only the onboard audio?
- Thread starter LOOP
- Start date
My opinion is that onboard audio is fine for everything you possibly need sound for, with one exception, that exception is games. Therefore if you want to listen to cd music, or watch a video, or anything else then onboard audio is fine. But for games, you need the decreased resources and faster response you will get when using a sound card.
Now I havent ran any benches but I can't tell a differance when playing with onboard sound versus a sound card. I hate that argument as 99% of the time, the differance is unnoticable. Perhaps when you bench, but I just turn it all off in the BIOS. I am currently sending audio out to a set of OLD polk audio desktop speakers that came with my wife's HP Celeron 850 MHz back in the day so needless to say, it's a waste of hardware.
Orbit said:
I agree with that to an extent. As stated by many others before, quality is only as good as the weakest link and in most cases, its the good old speakers. I am perfectly happy with my on-board sound but then again, I am perfectly happy with sucking balls.
sbrehm72255
Tech Monkey
Onboard sound works fine for me, but then again I'm half deaf from working on turbine engined helicopters in the Army for 20 years. So as long as I can hear it go boom when I frag something, it's all good...................
sbrehm72255 said:Onboard sound works fine for me, but then again I'm half deaf from working on turbine engined helicopters in the Army for 20 years. So as long as I can hear it go boom when I frag something, it's all good...................
You're in the army and you don't get enough killing already?
sbrehm72255
Tech Monkey
Been retired for sometime now........discharge said:
Living off a small retirement and disability........... After 2 helicopter crashes and a few small wars, the only killing happens on the computer, but that's not saying that I'd mind going back on active duty if I were called upon...........sbrehm72255 said:Onboard sound works fine for me, but then again I'm half deaf from working on turbine engined helicopters in the Army for 20 years. So as long as I can hear it go boom when I frag something, it's all good...................
Onboard sound also. I'm not deaf, but I don't mind it. I'm mostly too busy fragging in a game to worry about sound quality.
Jakal
Tech Monkey
Uc-ker said:
I'll do some benchmarks when I get a sound card but all I've got is a few forum posts that agree with me.
http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/card-benefits-ftopict176319.html
sbrehm72255
Tech Monkey
Using a sound card takes the load off the CPU that the onboard normally causes. I'm not sure if you'll get 5 FPS, but you'll gain a few anyway.............
fullpicture
Obliviot
In the past, I've tryed both an internal sound card and motherboard audio, and I never noticed a difference in speed between the two
fussnfeathers
E.M.I.
Yes, using a dedicated sound card will improve your FPS in games, if you use high-quality positional surround sound. If you run two channels for just headphones or 2.1 speakers, no surround or positional, you'll barely notice a difference.
Onboard sound chips use the CPU to process the surround decoding, while PCI based cards have (for the most part) their own dedicated processing chips. This removes the load from the CPU, RAM, and Northbridge, which can result in up to 5 FPS faster in games that use heavy audio encoding.
For the guy that said Soundstorm chips use fewer system resources, that is in comparison to previous onboard sound chips, not in comparison to PCI or other sound cards.
Onboard sound chips use the CPU to process the surround decoding, while PCI based cards have (for the most part) their own dedicated processing chips. This removes the load from the CPU, RAM, and Northbridge, which can result in up to 5 FPS faster in games that use heavy audio encoding.
For the guy that said Soundstorm chips use fewer system resources, that is in comparison to previous onboard sound chips, not in comparison to PCI or other sound cards.
Blumen
Coastermaker
ACTUALLY...
Believe it or not, the best possible sound solution that you can get out of a computer-based setup, is through an Nvidia SoundStorm onboard card. The SPDIF Out jack is the way to go. That's the key, because otherwise, it's not that much better than most other onboard sound solutions. If you run an optical audio cable from that to a dedicated stereo reciever (DAC), the sound clarity will be amazing. True surround, no noticeable distortion, much clearer, more defined, the advantages go on and on.
Sure, there are other pci slot sound cards that can also do it, but for some reason, they never sound as good.
Believe it or not, the best possible sound solution that you can get out of a computer-based setup, is through an Nvidia SoundStorm onboard card. The SPDIF Out jack is the way to go. That's the key, because otherwise, it's not that much better than most other onboard sound solutions. If you run an optical audio cable from that to a dedicated stereo reciever (DAC), the sound clarity will be amazing. True surround, no noticeable distortion, much clearer, more defined, the advantages go on and on.
Sure, there are other pci slot sound cards that can also do it, but for some reason, they never sound as good.