Soundstorm

[Howard]

Will the onboard SoundStorm on the Asus A7N8X Deluxe be as good/worse/better in terms of quality than a Hercules GameSurround Fortissimo II soundcard?

Thanks.

[directhex]

thru analog, worse

thru digital, mmm...

[Howard]

My mate is using his optical to coax digital converter for his speakers with the Hercules, so on the Soundstorm...?

[Trash Man]

Not sure how good that card is m8. I now the SoundStorm is better than the SB Audigy, but not quite as good as the Audigy 2.

[Zaphan58]

Stick with your soundstrorm, as already stated it comparable to the Audigy series of cards, so its a good sound system. In terms of quality I doubt you would notice much difference so you may aswell save your money and buy something else with it, like a few jars down the pub.....

[directhex]

the thing about soundstorm is digital 5.1 via dolby, whihc you can't get on any other DSP on the market.

[Trickle]

The cpu usage by Nvidia onchip sound is rock bottom - comparable to Audigy2.

But the main thing for non musician types is that soundstorm = 'free'. Where as PCI sound card = ££. Its another reason why an AMD chip and mobo can still be worth buying over an Intel these days.

[sparky191]

Originally posted by Trickle
The cpu usage by Nvidia onchip sound is rock bottom - comparable to Audigy2.

But the main thing for non musician types is that soundstorm = 'free'. Where as PCI sound card = ££. Its another reason why an AMD chip and mobo can still be worth buying over an Intel these days.

Its not free, the motherboard is more expensive than one without Soundstorm in it. So your paying for it there.

[sparky191]

Originally posted by directhex
thru analog, worse

thru digital, mmm...

I've heard this before that the analog on the SoundStorm is worse than a dedicated (decent) sound card but that the ditigal output is better. But I've never really seen a good explanation why.

[Ravens Nest]

What i heard was if you use analogue output, that the digital signal has to be converted to analogue and that motherboard manufacturer's use Realtek to convert the siganl(And there quality isnt the best) but if you use the digital output then it's a pure signal.

[directhex]

soundstorm has a dolby digital encoder in it, meaning it can create dolby 5.1 sound to be played back thru digital. no other card on the market can do this, they can only pass thru pre-created dolby data (e.g. a dvd sound track) or play stereo thru digital.

[Howard]

Audigys can do that...

[Trickle]

Originally posted by sparky191
Its not free, the motherboard is more expensive than one without Soundstorm in it. So your paying for it there.

Hence why I put it in inverted commas Still, £5 is much better than £20+ or sticking with poorer intel platform onboard sound solutions.

[sparky191]

Originally posted by Trickle
Hence why I put it in inverted commas Still, £5 is much better than £20+ or sticking with poorer intel platform onboard sound solutions.

I think theres normally a bigger price difference than that m8. So far the nforce boards haven't been niggle either have they? So some might prefer a board with no onboard sound and a dedicated sound card. I don't see what Intel has to do with it you can get AMD boards without onboard sound. Bringing Intel into it is a whole different discussion. This is not a Intel Vs AMD discussion this is a SoundStorm vs Hercules GameSurround Fortissimo II discussion. No?

[Agent]

Originally posted by Howard
Audigys can do that...

No they cant

They can only decode pre-created Dolby information, as Jo has allready mentioned

[Howard]

Edit: I stand corrected