Sound card or onboard sound?

[Wol]

Dear All,
I recently bought an ASUS K8S-MX motherboard with onboard sound (AC97 2.1 C-Media CMI9761 Surround Support 5.1 Channel) to go with a Sempron 2800 and 1 gig ram. I also have an Vibra 128 PCI sound card. Should I use the onboard sound or stick in the vibra 128 sound card?

cheers
Wol

 

[emogoch]

USe your ears. Onboard sound has come a long way from way back in the day and you won't see much of a performance (if any) by plugging a soundcard in. However, a separate soundcard can clean up the signal and provide other effects that onboard solutions don't, so plug it in, load up the drivers, and see which you prefer.

 

[morbidangel]

on-board tends to use more resources, i would use the card.
And if audio is really important to you look at audigy cards they should be cheap now that x-fi is out.

 

[pat]

on-board tends to use more resources, i would use the card.

Yes. So you'll be playing your game at 125 FPS instead of 136...


I remember, back in 1990, with 80286 at 16 MHz, when sound card were using a lot of ressources.. Right now, with todays system, resources are only a myth. While it is true that it takes some CPU cycles, there is plenty of ressources available. Ressources are not only CPU cycle. They can be RAM, IRQs,...

So, the best way to find out what to use is giving a try to the onboard. If he likes what he hears, then not using a PCI card will free up some ressources...

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