probably creative is 2 powerful 4 SC competition...at least this monopoly aint that bad compare with tmnutz

no need DE even Live 5.1 kicks onboard sound anytime.

True, mega/giga/tera/petaflops aren't graphic quality.

you might never know what is going to happen tomorrow.....
unless you're working in AMD/Intel

anyway, i am in a dilemma.... I am using ATP3 and GIGA 965P-DS3
shud i get a sound card below rm100? or the onboard is better?

If you're itching to spend a hundred bucks (i am hehe) grab a Chaintech AV710 soundacrd from daijobu's bulk... the sound is pretty good for stereo (not 5.1) as it uses HT24 chip...

This post has been edited by vey99: Feb 27 2007, 10:01 PM

lol my friend has a Gigabyte DS-3

and a Creative Sound card, dunno wat model but rather expensive

the Creative destroys the on-board sound card

built in sound cards normally are never as good as dedicated ones

well, it also depends on your speakers / amp

im using expensive amp but on board sound card

so no0b

Many normal users who use onboard sound will say why need a soundcard ?

You'll correct yourself again when you plug in a sound card with the same pair of speakers, you'll definitely hear the difference. I've used plain old AC97 before and I just cant stand the crackling sound and hissing noise when there is a cpu spike on soft music, crankling the volume up will hear alot of cracklers and hisses.

With an external soundcard like Creative (SB Live! onwards) you'll definitely hear a clearer sound with better SNR ratio, crispier sound and lower noise signals compare to onboard ones.

If you're an audiophile or music enthusiasts, you'll definitely want a soundcard than onboard solution but if you're a gamer, sound quality doesn't really matter as all you need is multi-speaker output which onboard sound offers up to 7.1 nowadays.

I personally uses Creative X-Fi, the sound quality difference comparing to Audigy 4 is Huge I dare to say, due to its 24-bit Crystalizer. If you ask me to get an Audigy 4 in favour of onboard solutions, save your penny I'll say

My 2 cents.

EDIT:



For your definition,
Onboard = High Quality

For my definition using your definition,
Onboard = High Quality
X-Fi = Very High Quality



This post has been edited by tanghm: Feb 28 2007, 05:36 PM

how much is a sound card, which can surpass onboard ones nowadays ?

rm 250 ? rm 300?

not many are so rich 2 do so

RM250 price Creative Sound Card is Good Enough, & pair good speakers... while EAX funtions enabled they sound so real in gamings...

U mean what model of sound card by Creatif? Audigy?

Audigy 4 i refering to...

Same here. My own system compare:
Sempron 2500+ with Live 5.1DE
PIII-800MHz with SB Live!
AMD X2 3800+ with on-board sound from Asus M2N-E.

Conslusion:
Sounds missing, choppy and unclear (lots of noise) from on-board sound VS those with SBLive even with a dual-core.

Verdict:
Use on-board sound if your ears can't detect any improvement.

Soundcard = faster gaming. It will free your processor from having to process the sound data, thus giving you more FPS ingame.
So soundcard is a must if ur a gamer.
Also interesting to note that Vista supports multiple soundcard now, and you can assign each soundcard for different programs, IE: onboard for music and external for gaming

They better be quick. I am getting pissed off with the size and power consumption of the GC these days. But I got one question, does that mean that we can never upgrade our gc in the future?

It means we upgrade our processor faster than ever.

yes faster gaming but with the processor and GPU being so powerful, you won't even feel it when the resources allocated to onboard sound.

soundcard is NOT a must even if you're a gamer. you can't generalize gamers like that. i'm a gamer myself, and i'm currently using onboard as my SB Live doesn't seem to be working....again.

for me, i get a soundcard regardless whether i'm gaming or not because i find that the output is nicer (richer la) but if you're a gamer who doesn't care about the details of what you hear and already have a powerful system. it doesn't matter.

in fact the argument of "using PCI soundcard would give you extra framerates" has been used for more than a decade. in the past, yes. during that time computers aren't that fact and onboard does use up resource but this isn't so these days when computing power is way way way more powerful than before while audio systems on computer are better than before.



btw SB Live is not EXTERNAL soundcard. it's ADD-ON soundcard or PCI soundcard. EXTERNAL soundcard would be like the EXTIGY.

Discrete sound card are generally better than onboard. But there are not much people would ask for X-Fi sound card, most of them would settle with Audigy or SBLive! These years the sound card market it has been quiet.

Currently the only way I can think of to live up the sound card revolution is voice recognition, things such as off loading sound processing to Sound card processor. but sound recognition is far from practical.

of course in terms of quality, independant sound card is the best. According to a magazine I read, a separate sound card can play 2 times or more synthesized sound in a game, compare to a onboard solution. So when it comes to games, certainly a dedicated card would do better.

While if you use PC just to surf, downloading and listen to lossy mp3, then better stick with onboard just fine.

Yeah i agree, SB is a really good card.I'm currently using philips aurilium external sc...quite good also..I dun wanna spend too much on a sc...

so boring. long time no keng keng sound card come out liao.