using onboard sound will cause significant hit in games' fps and the sound produce not that good.

change from onboard to dedicated sc and i fell worth it but now vista kill creative

gimme a soundcard anytime over onboard..

another thing is dat mobo design nowdays soundcard unfriendly..chuck in 2 vga with big coolers n u're out of space

Guys,u should hear sounds in games when u use an external soundcard...
They will blow u off!!!I've been using onboard soundcard since I'm a kid n now using an X-Fi, gaming is much much better!!!I'm serious...

But i think my onboard RealTek HD 7.1 is better than my SB Live 5.1...LOL.

Dude,that's SB LIVE...try a newer one....

why you compare your brand new onboard with a 57 YEARS OLD sound card?

This post has been edited by Sichiri: Feb 8 2007, 05:44 PM

that means on-board audio pwns the once-a-king-SB Live

Not all soundcards are better just because they're newer . My advice has always been to use a cheap soundcard as a transport and relay it out to some external DAC, and since most modern processors have more than enough power, i'm not too worried. Plus quality also depends very much on your speakers, if you're using Sonicgears and want to throw in an EMU, Lynx 1 or BB Eval board, you've gotta be kidding if you think those speakers could take advantage of that added detail.

I agree bro...

Im using x-fi rite now and compared to my cmedia 7.1, the x-fi wins hands down.The sound of the card is just so crisp..and gaming is like being in the game.

are you sure? seriously, losing 10 fps from an already 70fps isn't a problem.

that also i highly doubt using onboard sound would make you lose that much.

seriously, when we say onboard sound - it's generalizing it already. so i advise all of you, that if you wish to say your PCI card sound better onboard - at least specify the chipset.

in my case, i used the onboard sound on NF7-S and NV8 from ABIT. in fact i used NV8 onboard sound for NFS:MW game and thought it was well. my SB Live DE 5.1 was in storage some where cos i thought it was spoiled in some way. some how i manage to make it come alive again and wow i just realized how much detail i was missing - and that was also my DE 5.1

But guys, with an onboard SC, u can't crank the sound quality to Ultra High...take example in BF2...

The thing is that a sound card can cost the same or even more than a mainboard price. So im sure that the sound card will still have its benefits no matter what.

Back during the days of Pentium II, I would always purchase an external sound card and disable my onboard sound. But nowadays onboard sound has come a long way. Also;

- I've run out of PCI slots to put my sound card. 4 slots; 1 NIC, 1 lighting, 1 for GC's massive heatsink fan.
- It is my humble opinion that an external sound card would suck up more power from the PSU.
- The games I play don't seem very affected by sound issues. I'm on a Pentium 4 anyways, so that limits the kinds of games I can play.

But I won't deny that an external sound card will improve things, provided you have the space and power to accomodate. It's just that I know I probably won't prioritise sound cards as much as I did in the olde days.

"In the game" experience is more about buying the biggest baddest monitor u can get. Then add the biggest baddest graphics card u can get to power that big bad monitor. That's the main thing that gets u "in the game". U shud c how FPS games look on a 30" monitor. The hand n the gun is life size! In games like Oblivion too, the hands r life sized. Now, that's what u call "in the game". There's no point having a rm1000 soundcard when all u c is a puny lil 17 or 19" monitor.

Anyway, what's the point of investing in PC sound? MP3s sound like crap. N if u play CDs then it's so much better to invest in proper Hi-Fi.

Not 100 percent true, i use my PC as my reference listening rig and to be honest with you it's alot more awesome than alot of expensive CD players out there Plus not everyone uses MP3s, i use ALAC and FLAC

yeah. which is why i'm sticking to my SB Live DE 5.1 despite having gone through at least 6 changes in GC and 3 changes in monitor..............oh wait, nowadays i use onboard cos my mobo went for RMA and i've not installed the PCI soundcard :

It might be sooner than you thought. Intel has already hinted that the excess cores that come with its processors can render graphic cards redundant.

i play counter strike with my speaker turn off sometimes

and how does that help? other than reducing noise......