On board sound vs. SB live value

[Blisterz]

With almost every board out there comming with onboard sound, and onboard quality getting better and better. My friend watned to know if there was any point in using his SB live value (not the 5.1) since his motherboard comes with a Realtek ALC650 6.1 suround. If he was trying to use 5.1/6.1 speakers then the choice would be obvious, but he only has 2 speakers, and most of the time he only uses headphones. I told him I think that even though the SB live is a lot older, it is still better quality sound, but I don't know for sure.

[Asher]

You probably can't tell the difference in sound quality, but the add-in cards like the Live almost always use less CPU, which boosts performance.

[Cruddy]

Doubt very much you are going to hear any difference through headphones.

Using a soundcard when you have onboard can cause problems, although this is not common. I have seen at least one thread on this site about that - turned out a new driver sorted it anyway.

Maybe your friend will one day invest in a surround amp and speakers? Or maybe their are a movie buff who wants to play DVDs on the comp. For either of those, then the card would make sense.

Just listening to Windows tones on headphones - no point.

[Neutrino]

I read an article on onboard APUs vs sound cards a few weeks ago.. can't find the link now.

Most sound cards take the processing load off the CPU, which like Asher said boosts CPU performance. I remember reading about the nVidia nForce2 MCP-T chipset though - it offered sound quality almost comparable to a SB Audigy and didn't hog the CPU as much as the other onboard APUs in the review.

[Dis]

6.1

what is that?

How many speakers are they going to have. I have heard of 7.1 as well.

How many speakers are we expected to have?

Who has room for all this crap?

[Q Classic]

you won't notice the difference, really, unless you're going to be doing either processor-intensive gaming/utilities (like compiling), or high-end av work.

if it's av work you're looking for, you won't be buying an sb live value, for one.

as for gaming, the sound card doesn't often lower framerate.

if it's cheap, i'd still go for the card, rather than using the onboard sound, mostly because i don't like too much integrated (i.e., sound, video.)

[Neutrino]

Found the link:

http://www17.tomshardware.com/game/20030405/index.html

Hope this helps

[Skanky Burns]

I am thinking of upgrading my soundcard. I have a SB Live Value, and it is a pain with regards to new games that actually require dx9 compatible cards. Well, compatible drivers. What would the cheapest decent card be?

[Q Classic]

turtle beach santa cruz.

linux support isn't spectacular (only for the chip, not the full card), but for a sub-$90 card, it's exceptional quality. i appreciate the fact that it does onboard hardware mp3 decoding, so the load is really small on the sound card and negligible on the cpu.

[Skanky Burns]

Thanks.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
you won't notice the difference, really, unless you're going to be doing either processor-intensive gaming/utilities (like compiling), or high-end av work.

if it's av work you're looking for, you won't be buying an sb live value, for one.

as for gaming, the sound card doesn't often lower framerate.

if it's cheap, i'd still go for the card, rather than using the onboard sound, mostly because i don't like too much integrated (i.e., sound, video.)

I have this game, Vietcong, where using the soundcard buffers or EAX (I have the Santa Cruz card) lowers framerates by 1-2 fps. This may not be bad if frame rates were in the 40's to begin with. But this game is a real CPU hog. It's framerates on my machine are in the mid teens. One or two FPS are quite noticeable.

Virtually everyone who plays this game also reports similar reductions in framerates with other cards as well.

Since I do not understand what the difference is between using the soundcard buffers and using software buffers, or using EAX, I am not in a position to understand why this phenomena occurs. It seems counter-intuitive if the soundcard is supposed to relieve the CPU from some overhead.

[Q Classic]

eax does 3d processing, and doesn't do all of it onboard.

that's why it doesn't relieve the cpu, and is the cause for the slowdown.

you can turn it off usually in the game.

i've not played vietcong, and i've yet to run into trouble when i've had eax active. so it's not exactly a common common issue, but it does crop up in many processor-intensive games.

you can bet it'll slow down games like hl2 or d3.

[Ned]

Q Cubed, thanks for the explanation. But I can tell you one thing, the sound in games, like Vietcong, is amazing with EAX enabled. When the bullets whiz past you, they really seem to be there.