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Motherboard sound or a dedicated card? what do you use
Lamarak123
Member Posts: 6
I have decided to build my own system and pretty well have everything bought and waiting on delivery. Ive been reading that todays motherboard is quite fine for a souncard if only thing you really do is game. Do you find this is true or should i get a dedicated gaming card.
My system is basically a i7 4600k 3.4 sandy bridge, 12 gig ram(1600), one geforce 580 gtx oveclocked, with plans of adding a second for sli. Motherboard is Asus P8P67 deluxe b3 intel P67.
If do recommend a soundcard, which in your opinion is best for games like Witcher 2, Rifts, games like that. Dont play first person shooters.
Thanks for any advice.
Cant wait to play the new Elder Scrolls Skyrim with this new system. Been saving to build or buy something nice for awhile.
Comments
I use to use discrete sound cards but quite honestly with the advancements of onboard sound I really dont see a need for it.
now, soundcard vendors will want you to think you really need one of these to "be at the top of your game" but the reality is they add zero to your game. No, they really dont do anything at all for performance and if anything sponge more resources then an onboard.
outside of gaming they might have a purpose, like if you use your computer for digitally remixing audio in a studio you might want something specific to your needs. If youre playing games and listening to your audio through a generic 5.1 or 7.1 set of computer speakers or through your mic'd headset..save the $100 or $150 that creative is trying to convince you that you need and stick to the onboard.
even now most onboard sound has your digital outputs and in some cases coaxial as well as all your 5.1 or 7.1 output needs. Now, I know someone is going to say something in contrast to this but until I see some real world or even synthetic benchmarks comparing the benefits from an onboard sound vs. a discrete sound card I'll remain convinced that sound card manufacturers are doing everything they can to convince consumers they need to buy this over the onboard option most reputable motherboards offer.
I use onboard... now. It used to be an issue to do that, but now, the quality of onboard is very good. I've never had a problem with my set-up using onboard. I have seen driver issues for some of the add-ons or lack of support in general which made me hesitate from moving to an add-on. I think you have to really, really be into audio to notice a difference and/or really, really trying to squeeze an extra point or two out of some benchmark to feel you need an add-on these days.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
Unless you have 'absolute hearing' or are an audiophile stick to the onboard soundcard. If you have 'absolute hearing' or are an audiophile (or both like me), get a very good audiocard. Personally I picked the Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion because it gives me the best quality for a 'decent' price.
totally agree, i used to put soundcards in my system at one time too, but now the onboard sound on most mobo's is so good that its a needless expenditure to add one, especially for gaming, and normal useage at least. instead i'd buy a decent usb headset/mic combo.. like the logitech ones myself.. cheap'n'cheerful and does everything you need it to
Since I have my steroe jacked up to my computer I use a dedicated card. A creative X-FI USB card. It is great if I for some reason want to get better sound for my laptop as well since it is USB and it doesn't take up a precious slot on my motherboard.
If you use your computer just for gaming you might as well use the onboard card but if you have a nice stereo connected a dedicated card is the best choice, at least if you play other stuff than short MP3s.
I can only judge useing my system , which is 2 years old e8500 . I have a creative titanium I think it was $70 and it makes a difference in games and music, everything seems to come out more and is deftinitly clearer, with my systems built in sound it is a bit muffled, so to me it was worth $70
Try your onboard sound first. If you like it, keep it. And if you don't like it, then you can look into getting a sound card.
If you're getting two video cards in SLI, then you might not have much room for other add-in cards.
Also, you shouldn't have 12 GB of system memory on a Sandy Bridge processor. Sandy Bridge has a dual channel memory controller, so your amount of system memory should be a power of 2. For most people, it should be either 4 GB or 8 GB. If you need more than 8 GB, then make it 16 GB.
What power supply and case do you have, if you're looking into two GTX 580s in SLI? That will pull a lot of power, and put out a lot of heat.
I paid about 70$ for a 5.1 surround system, and an additional roughly 20$ for a fitting sound card. I'm content with that. The sound is much better than with my old system. The only annoying thing is, that the drivers for the 5.1 thingy disable the headset connections at the front of the computer. And I can't use the ones in the back, because the microphone-in one is at the soundcard, and the headset-out one is 2m away at another box. Since my old headset was falling apart anyway, I just bought a good usb one for about 35$. That works. You can't expect wonders from that, but it got surround sound, is far better than my old version, and so the whole sound stuff did cost me just a bit more than 100$.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
I used to use low-mid end soundcards in my system -- but in my most recent system I went to onboard sound.
Personally I would rather have had the soundcard and may buy one and install it. The sound quality is ok through the motherboard BUT it doesnt always occur at the right moments. Meaning if you go to pogo or something you might have a delay between the action and the sound. It doesnt happen in rift which makes me wonder if pogo is having issues with onboard sound -- but regardless I have seen such things in other places.
Having the sound card was better.
i use creative extreme gamer, by now probably low end sound card, while it got its own advantages, mostly due software tho, those extra sound features and quality usually depend on game you play, some just doesnt provide good sound quality and stuff like that, some doesnt provide proper 5.1 where my software kicks in and makes it 5.1
stuff like extra procesing power to increase performance is long gone, since now cpus are so powerfull, and most sound cards doesnt even have its own sound processor/ram/wth its called , anymore , i mean we run on 4-5k on 4+ cores, opposed to 2k on 1 core..
personally all incompability and crashes makes it annoying, and you should just get good asus mb with asus soundcard on board, that way you will have best of both words, no issues and crashes, hopefully , and good sound quality, and maybe lower price, ( all high end gaming asus mboards have asus sound card on them) which is higher quality than low end creative cards ( and you dont need sound card made for music creation)
I use http://www.amazon.com/Plantronics-GameCom-777-Surround-Technology/dp/B001KURYAS
The USB sound card that comes with it makes all the difference imo. Typically I prefer to game with my headset on the sound is amazing with it. I have personally tested my headset w/ and w/o the card and also my speakers w/ and w/o. There is a serious difference. I so I say yes, there is a serious difference.
Onboard currently. My old Soundblaster X-FI finally gave out a month ago. I had the thing for maybe 5-6 years haha it did it's job. Most of the computers I have built for family and friends over the past year or so I just use onboard now. Most of the onboard stuff now is pretty decent. If you are an audio freak, pci sound card probably still the way to go.
After having spent the ~110$ (soundcard, 5.1 surround system, high quality headset) it's kinda fun to pay attention to what games support surround sound. I mean: TF2, sure. WoW? I didn't know that. Even though I don't have WoW installed right now, it was quite a change.
Well, you can play well without it I guess, but sometimes it's just nice to treat yourself.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
As I'm sure it's been said in this thread (I didn't read it), dedicated cards are pretty much old school. They used to be required to take some of the load off your CPU, but today it doesn't matter. Unless you're a professional musician or just want really really great sound, there is really no reason for a dedicated card.
The last time I had to buy one, was around 2004. I remember a couple games that my computer would completely lag out on, because of the sound. BF2 reloading sounds were the worst. (My computer was underpowered at the time)
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As far as I know, they reduce the stress on your CPU but of course take up some more RAM. But both shouldn't matter that much on modern systems. I personally just bought it for the 5.1 sound, because the onboard card wouldn't be able to deliver that.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
Most onboard sound cards these days are 7.1 surround sound, with analog and digital (coax and optical) outputs. Quite a change in the past 4 or so years.
Most add-on sound cards (even the ones starting at $20) take some load off of your CPU for generating sound. These days that doesn't amount to much, even for gaming. A few frames per second, certainly less than 10 or maybe even 5 frames a second.
I think the add-on sound cards are going to become something only people who are recording multi-track music are going to need.
I have an add-on sound card in my system because I thought I was getting static from the on-board sound. Turns out it was just something in the game. I do like using two sound cards when I'm using vent though. One card pushes the game sound through the speakers, and the other pushes the vent sound through the headphones.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
do you really think an addon sound card is giving your system an additional 5 fps? why do you and others think that onboard sound puts more of a load on your cpu then a discrete sound card?
im not trolling you in any way, I just know that a lot of people have this same mentality yet ive never seen anything to back it up.
I use the X-Fi Titanium.
On Board sound may mot be as bad as a few years ago but still cheap motherboards do not sound well and the soundcard has a live of 3 or 4 or more motherboards so over the years its unexpensive to buy one.
Also, even if the soundquality is good there be still the problem that the onboard sound may steal some ingame noises (some noises be left out) which you only get aware if you know the sound with and without a good discrete soundcard.
I tried AoC, also some other games (when i builded me a new computer) quite a while ago and the onboard sound left out so many noises it was ridiculous!
For replaying recorded stuff onbaord sound is good enough is my experience...
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM
Some discreet sound cards have their own processor specifically for sound, some even have RAM chips to lessen the load on your memory. Onboard sound uses your actual CPU to do the computations.
The benefits are pretty negligable, and in most causes they aren't even able to be quanitifed.