Ok fellahs, I have pretty good on-board (REALTEK) Audio on the muthaboard, but I'm thinking of getting a Soundblaster Xi-Fi or whatnot.

Three Questions:

1) I use Logitech G35 headphones via a USB port. Since I wouldn't be hooking these up directly to the Soundcards direct audio out, could I still use the soundcard? (i.e. with the on-board audio turned off in BIOS, but via the USB port).

2) Is it worth it? Does the audio improve significantly?

3) If yes to 1&2 above, what card would you recommend?

Always get the best advice here, so thanks in advance.

d.

Sound card takes pressure away from cpu by processing its own stuff.

The main advantage is if you plug it into a full 5:1 or 7:1 speaker set up.

Must admit mine isn't. It's just into line in on my Sony hi-fi but the sound is strong and beefy.

One of the other advantages is a menu has a 'record what you hear' feature which is good for recording music from high quality streams etc

Onboard sound has come a long way and multi-core cpu means it's not so important to have a dedicated sound card but I prefer it and the 'record what you hear' feature is worth it on its own for me plus you have all the additional sound controls in the menus.

Many onboard sound solutions lack in number of voices it can process. My Audigy 2 ZS can do 64 voices while my onboard Realtek ALC888 still can only do 32...

I did a Poll a little while back on soundcard vs onboard here


http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3376490/Poll_Onboard_sound_or_Soundcar.html#Post3376490

I think that default sound devices are sufficiently good enough to say that if you want better sound... get better speakers.

Yep, I'm with Gopher....I used to have a top of the range X-Fi Elite Pro, with my recent motherboard upgrade I thought I'd give the onboard sound a try before re-installing the X-Fi and you can't tell tell the difference whatsoever. The resources taken up these days by onboard sound is minimal and like he says, the real difference is going to be in the speakers or the headset that you use anyway.

The mistake here is calling X-Fi cards an improvement over on board audio. Xonar cards from Asus however, are miles ahead of anything onboard.




1) No. Your G35 has its own sound card. There is no way of improving on that.

2) Yes, if you pair it with proper equipment and covert to FLAC instead of MP3. And better cards - better sound positioning.

3) Something from Asus, albeit you would need a new headphones for that.*


*Guide to gaming headphones / headsets:

http://www.overclock.net/sound-cards-com...s-headsets.html



Or you could go with S/PDIF + reciever with a good DAC => analog headphones.

Agreed. I can definitely tell the difference between my Xonar DX and the onboard sound.

I think the X-FI cards with their onboard RAM (the gamer ones) are the fastest around. I have no experience with the ASUS ones. Only a few guys use them and i don't even know if the drivers run flawlessly with all the games.
But if they sound so good (which i doubt) why aren't they the common cards around?

Creative are the name that everyone knows as they have history on their side.. I remember buying a SB AWE32 soundcard many, many years ago.. The brand name is what gives them market domination.

Brand knowledge does not always equal product superiority though. If you read any group tests for sound cards it quickly becomes clear that in many (presumably) unbiased reviewers opinions in the "gaming soundcard" arena Asus currently hold sway in terms of product quality and driver stability.

Don't take these guys words for it, do a bit of research. I have and my answer would also be go Asus.

Just my tenpenneth worth.