Sound - On Board Chip or Dedicated Card?

thanks for the reply ICE
getting a 36gb raptor woul be nice but a decent sound card might be more of a priority for me. how good is on board sound these days?
gigabyte mobo link
the gigabye motherboard link above is a mobo that is a possible buy but i wondered if on board sound is good enough these days or if i should forget the raptor get a decent sound card and get a raptor later?
i do like listening to music alot atm my current pc has a creative Audigy 2 ZS PCI card and it sounds great.
but if i get a good sound card with my new pc i will avoid creative sound cards since there drivers are buggy and bloated and get a emu sound card instead.
lodore

~ Split out of the "western digital raptor?" thread ~ Menorcaman

 

@lodore,
Onboard sound (over analog) is fine for 90 % of people and specially those with crappy computer speakers. If you have a receiver/processor/DAC with digital (S/PDIF) imput, you´ll be OK.

 

@lucas,
i will be using my amplifer in my bedroom so i dont know if the on board sound will be good enough.
i like to listen to my music with good speakers and not crappy computer speakers hence why atm i have £100 speakers for my current pc and a creative soundcard.
but as i said creative drivers are buggy and bloated and wouldnt buy a sound card from them again.
lodore

 

?
If there aren´t any resampling issues, digital connections are almost all equal and provide bit-perfect output.

 

what connections would i use to connect it to my amp?
any links?
thanks
lodore

 

How Sound Cards Work
S/PDIF
http://img484.imageshack.us/img484/6636/1165059538546682xw8.th.jpg

- There is a RCA (coaxial S/PDIF) right to the serial port.
- There is a TOSLink (optical S/PDIF) below all audio connectors.

 

are they x-fi?
if so have you got like 5 creative processes that run all the time?
also what is the deal with the creative x-mod? haas it got the same ports as the other x-fi sound cards but with no driver or software install?
because if it is it might be worth getting one of those.
lodore

 

ok i have like 5 processes with my current creative sound card the
Audigy 2 ZS
the emu sound cards are also made by creative but i don't know how the drivers are for them.
but if the drivers for the emu sound card is less it might be worth getting one of those instead.
link

 

E-MU cards are pro/semipro soundcards (like M-Audio, ESI, Hoontech, Terratec, RME, Echo Audio, Lynx, etc)
They have better drivers and DACs.
But, I repeat, if you are going to feed your receiver with digital bitstream, all cards will sound the same.

 

What loudspeakers are you using?
Are you using digital connection?

 

they are very old speakers connected to either a rotel or arcam amp
i dont think they have digital connections.
also why would creative spend years producing the x-fi if on board sound on mobo's sounded the same?
lodore

 

- Quality over analog connector (DACs, OPAMPs, etc).
- DSP for audio APIs (EAX, OpenAL, etc) used by games.
Also, onboard sound wasn´t always the same. AC 97 is really crap, HDA/Azalia is much better.

 

ok then
has this mobo got good on board sound? eiether way what sound chip set does it use
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products...w.aspx?ProductID=2438&ProductName=GA-M61PM-S2

 

Realtek ALC883 Audio Codec
Mid-range codec, regular analog quality, excellent digital quality.

For comparison, this is my soundcard:
- VIA ICEnsemble Envy24 HT-S chipset.
- A nice Wolfson WM8728 DAC (2ch, 24 bit/192 KHz, 106 dB SNR)
Bit-perfect digital output and a really good stereo DAC for headphones.

 

Trust me, anyone who wants a motherboard with onboard sound should not settle for anything other than a SoundMAX audio chip. They have the very best audio quality for onboard solutions. SoundMAX was the only AC'97 chip around that could produce some really good quality audio, and it retains that status on HD Audio.

My AC'97 SoundMAX chip produces audio on par with my Creative SBLive! 24-bit. That is a feat, if not anything else.

 

could i use my pci sound blaster from my old dell pc?
lodore

 

Keep using your Audigy 2 ZS, you need to spend a bunch of money to beat that card. The best onboard sound was Nvidia SoundStorm but thats history.

 

i cant do that.
im gonna build a pc for myself soon and leave this pc for the rest of my family usage so i need a sound card for the pc im building for myself
lodore

 

Yes, ADI codecs > Realtek codecs

Why not?

 

the creative sound blaster live 24bit should be better than any on board sound that is the one in my old dell
lodore