Inegrated Realtek Audio - should I worry?

[Grr1967]

I intend to buy a new PC for the purpose of sound broadcast (via internet) and sound editing.

My current PC has two sound cards: On board Creative SB 128 and PCI SB Live 5.1. Even though none of them is best in class - they both suit my purposes.

I looked through mother boards running Intel 865PE (which is my preference) and all the boards I found out had Realtek audio on board. Specifically Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000 Pro has Realtek ALC655 AC'97 audio CODEC chip. It's not clear about ASUS P4P800 Deluxe but I believe it has the same chip as well.

I would like to hear your opinion about the REALTEK chip versus the SB 128 PCI that I had:
1) Will I suffer loss of sound quality?
2) Will I have synchronization problems between the Realtek and the second PCI card (the SB Live 5.1)?

Should I consider a non-integrated board for and connect two PCI sound cards on it? If so, which board is recommended?

Thanks a lot for your patience through this.

 

[Maverick494]

The Realtek Audio built in will probably outperform either of the 2 current PCI cards you have. I dodn't have any experience with the ALC655, but the ALC650 6-ch that is built-in on my MSI Delta-ILSR is better than my old SB Audigy was. I have no hiss and crackle like before and it does enviornmental audio superbly. IMHO you will get a sound quality gain and the sync will be no prob.

Just a computer junky

 

[Spitfire_x86]

but the ALC650 6-ch that is built-in on my MSI Delta-ILSR is better than my old SB Audigy was

Realtek ALC650 in this mobo is doing nothing but working as an amplifier in this mobo (all MCP-T nForce2 mobos except Chaintech). nForce APU is doing the sound processing job, this is why it's better than Audigy

I've heard ALC650 in mobos where it does the real job, it doesn't sound bad- but no EAX support (Creative PCI 128 also doesn't have EAX) and pretty high CPU usage for gaming (won't be higher than Creative PCI 128). So it's not a very good choice for serious gamers. For listening to music, it's okay.

And using onboard and discrete sound at the same time should not create any problem

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