Few questions on sound

[BlasphemousMusic]

ok I just bought a dell studio xps 8100 computer. It has the onboard realtek HD audio on it with 6 av imputs and a s/pdif jack too. I have an xfi extreme gamer card installed now. Which one is actually better? I tried to do some searches but came up with nada. Usually there is no question that the xfi would be better but I've never had a pc with this kind of decent onboard sound.


I use logitec z-680 speakers currently with analog sounds (green, black, orange av plugs). Its loud as hell and decent on clarity but I want to hook it up to use the optional digital output. It has a coax and optical input/output on it. Which type of cable to I use? If its just regular optical sound (like I have on my ps3 and my home theater system) the I know wht type of cable it uses but I don't believe my new computers sound board has a plug in for it? I don't have one on the xfi either.

Hopefully this isn't too confusing I just want to get better sound overall from the speakers and or the sound card/onboard sound. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[outlw6669]

Yes, your dedicated sound card will give you much better sound than the onboard codec.

Defiantly stick with using the analogue cables though.
Outputting the sound through TOSLINK just means the speakers will be doing the DAC conversion, not the sound card.
Same as your sound card having a better DAC than your onboard codec, it also has a beter DAC than your speakers.
Your best sound quality is just as you have it now.

 

[NathanSuite]

Stick with the dedicated sound card. It lightens the load for the cpu.

 

[outlw6669]

Perhaps, but by quite a bit less than you are probably thinking....
Tested on an old 2.67Ghz E6700, CPU utilization was pretty darn close between onboard and dedicated.
With newer CPU's, it will be even lower.

 

[BlasphemousMusic]

Best answer selected by BlasphemousMusic.

 

[BlasphemousMusic]

thanks for the reply! again I was confused because I'd never owned a 7.1 onboard sound dealy