onboard sound and seperate sound cards wots the diffrence ??

[wazi]

im just wondering with a decent spec mobo , how does the sound compare to and separate x-fi card ???
is there a massive difference ?? wot are the gains and disadvantages and advantages ???

[nightkhaos]

The sound is crisper and cleaner. The advantage comes from lack of EMF. On the motherboard the sound can and will be affected by the operation of the other devices, this results in things like bad gain, and noise being produced. With a dedicated card the system, particularly the analog part, will be heavily sheilded, and the sound audio-processor will be able to do things like channel mixing in hardware (onboard sound has to do that in software).

There is also the 1337 factor of having an indepedent sound card that can't be ignored.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

However some of the recent on-board sound codecs such as the Realtek HD one are actually reasonably decent especially if you use line-outs. A dedicated sound card or a DAC like the ones Beresford make are even better but TBH it depends on whether you use your computer for critical listening or not.

The separate cards tend to have lower CPU usage too.

[wazi]

thnx , so that means i might have to shell out a lil to get a lot back

[AntiTalent]

^What he said.

But if you're going to invest in a sound card, invest in some decent speakers/headphones too. Otherwise there's no point. EDIT: aside from the CPU load offsetting, as described above. But I'd go for a decent pair of headphones so I can appreciate the difference.

I'm pretty lazy, so I stick with my onboard and some creative speakers from the Pentium III -era.

[Hicks12]

Id recommend getting some logitech z4's with some creative or asus cards, creative for gaming and asus for films/music.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

thnx , so that means i might have to shell out a lil to get a lot back

Make sure that you can actually hear a difference first otherwise it will be a waste of money to get a separate sound card. Also the sound quality is very dependent on the quality of the files you play and quality of the headphones or speakers you use.

[nightkhaos]

^What he said.

But if you're going to invest in a sound card, invest in some decent speakers/headphones too. Otherwise there's no point.

I'm pretty lazy, so I stick with my onboard and some creative speakers from the Pentium III -era.

Decent speakers don't have to cost all that much. My set of 5.1s only cost about £35, and they perform better than some of the £90 sets I have had the "privilage" of listening too.

With everything, it's all about reviews. You can make a product that uses expensive gold wiring, but that doesn't mean you can remove the sheilding.

[slinger]

Up until last night I'd been using the on board Realtek HD on my motherboard but noticed interference as has been mentioned, I stuck in a X-Fi Extreme Music last night and couldn't believe the difference, especially with full 5.1 sounds.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The rear line-outs on my motherboard have no interference whereas the front headphone jack did. Anyway when I have the cash I will get a Beresford TC7510 and use it with my headphone amp and Grados. Hopefully it should do the job nicely!!

[wazi]

ive already got 5.1 setup in kids room , it does rock and downstirs ihave the MIGHTY logitech Z5500
and they are devastating ask my neighbours
might add a x-fi card to kids pc

[holy god of nil]

I want to connect my onboard sound to my stereo amp, but it doesn't have a line-out, it's got 6 jacks: line-in, front speaker out, mic in, center/sub, rear speaker and side speaker.
Should I just output through the front speaker jack?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I want to connect my onboard sound to my stereo amp, but it doesn't have a line-out, it's got 6 jacks: line-in, front speaker out, mic in, center/sub, rear speaker and side speaker.
Should I just output through the front speaker jack?

Use the front speaker out and not the headphone jack as it tends to be boosted and hence sounds worse. You should be able to configure the settings using the software for the onboard sound.

[stevie lee]

I want to connect my onboard sound to my stereo amp, but it doesn't have a line-out, it's got 6 jacks: line-in, front speaker out, mic in, center/sub, rear speaker and side speaker.
Should I just output through the front speaker jack?

yes exactly.

use a minijack to phono cable - the red goes into the right channel, white into left channel on the stereo inputs