Which is better onboard sound or PCI?

[just1tree]

I just received my new Soyo KT333 Ultra Platinum!!! Great looking board especially with my case window. I am at odds with the decision however as to whether or not I should go with the onboard C Media 6 channel sound, or go with my Soundblaster Live 5.1 PCI card. I always liked the Soundblaster, but if I can save some real estate inside the box I will. But I just could not find much in the review department regarding the C media onboard sound. I would like some Tweaktown opinions on this one.
Thanks

[Wiggo]

Unless you have a very good audio ear you may not notice the difference at all. :smokin:
<center>:cheers:</center>

[bigjackusa]

I would think that if you don't have rear speakers, the onboard sound might actually be better for games. It is supposed to have good 2 speaker and headphone positional sound.

[Morgan_Lander]

It really comes down to what kind of equalizer adjustments you have or don't. If you don't have that, the different cards really won't make much of a difference..

[MHG]

I currently have the same sound chip on my Asus P4S533 Motherboard and it sounds great with the Logitech Z560 4.1
Speaker System.
The only disadvantage using this chip is that the Auxillary Input Jack doubles as the rear speakers Output Jack(which you can change thru the mixer) and when using with 4.1 & 5.1 speakers
you lose the use of the Audio Input Jack, meaning if EX. you
plan on using a TV Tuner card there is no easy connection to hook its Audio up to.
Also remember you will not run into possible incompatability issues by using the Onboard sound chip and you save a PCI slot also. A review which I once read said that this chip performed
better in games and just about as good in mp3 playback as the
Soundblaster Audigy Card.

Still looking for the Review Link, if found will paste it latter.

My System:
P4 1.6A @ 2.133Ghz. 133FSB /conservative
Asus P4S533 M.B. (SiS 645DX Chipset)
OCSystem 512 MB. True Speed DDR-400Mhz.Ram
Leadtek AD 250 TD Geforce 4 Ti-4400 Which runs nicely @ 300/650Mhz.
Maxtor 80 Gig. 7200 RPM ATA-133 H.D.
Yamaha CRW-3200 CDRW
Lite-On 163 16X DVD
Digital Doc 5
SuperFlower Black Aluminum/Magnesium Case with 6 case fans stock.
Antec TruePower 430 Watt P.S.
IBM P97 Stealth 19 inch CRT Monitor
Logitech Z-560 4.1 Speakers
Belkin 1200 V/A UPS
MS Intellimouse 1.1 Special Edition
Windows XP Professional

Since Intels price drops I just upgraded to the 2.53Ghz.

[Gilad]

Stay with the onboard sound it has it's advantages if for some reason you feel that you need the SB 5.1 (But i suppose you will not) then just add it.

[lexsis]

why would anybody choose onboard sound over PCI !!! :eek:

thats insanity, and people like that should be locked away. with soundblaster live you get environmental audio effects. I think it already comes with 30 and on their site, there are hundreds more.

can you use the EQ that comes with SB live with the sound on your board? :thumbs do

[Gilad]

For one important reason: SB 6.1 with SNR of 106dB is just around the corner. For those who this is not important the onboard sound will suffice :)

[Wiggo]

Onboard sound chips are much better than those southbridge codec jobs plus not all of us are audiophiles enough to warrant the cost of a soundcard when it's not necessary (unless of course it's a southbridge codec). ;)
<center>:cheers:</center>

[tesna]

Isn't onboard sound use cpu cycles especially onboard chip using AC 97 codec??

[Gilad]

Negligible

[Wiggo]

tesna[/size]]
Isn't onboard sound use cpu cycles especially onboard chip using AC 97 codec??

The only time that I use an AC 97 codec (southbridge sound) is with office PC's but your motherboard has a hardware chip onboard which gives very good 4 channel sound plus with the processing power that you have are you really that worried about loosing 2-4fps in some game that you already have in excess of a 150fps? :?:
<center>:cheers:</center>

[just1tree]

Well, so far I have stuck with the onboard C-Media Chip and I personally can't notice much difference between the onboard chip and the Sounblaster 5.1. I don't have any 5.1 or 6.1 speakers, I have Altec Lansing' ATP3 which produce great sound, but I don't have surround speakers. The only problem I had with the C-Media chip is when doing a windows update, microsoft had a new driver posted, and I tried it out and it caused the sound to suck. So I rolled back the driver and all is well. Warcraft 3 sounds great on the card and DVD's are rocking so unless I am really missing something with SoundBlaster Audigy or something, I think I will put my soundblaster in my wife's computer.

Oh yeah, I was having some problems with my Geforce 4 TI4400 in my box, causing the system to crash etc. It was just to big for my box, so I took the card back to circuit city and was able to exchange and pay the difference for a Radeon 9700 Pro!!! I love circuit city (and my new card rocks too!!!)

[{PoSeIdOnAs}]

in my opinion, the only advantage to having the onboard sound as compared to PCI is that you have room for something else to be used on those PCI slots........in a small case / small mobo.

but when you build your own system or if you in general get a 'standar' sized medium sized or tall case , PCI is far better because the onboard chipsets can caus conflicts with the system if you put another sound card on there.......plus....... dont the onboard stuff automatically and permanently occupy IRQ and DMA request inputs (BIOS or otherwise)???? If I am correct about that last line....then I would say that it takes up necessary IRQ / DMA needed for adding other PCI cards onto the system.

[Ehhe Yebeb]

I could be very wrong on this. Apparently CMedia 1378 5.1 uses a seperate chip so it doesnt hog CPU cycles. AC97 DOES use CPU cycles, but hardly any. Also as wiggo said, you wont notice the difference, IMO sound quality comes mainly from your speakers. I have perfect hearing, and i can barely tell any difference between my SB Live, 2 channel AC97, and my old Sound blaster 64, all using the same speakers.