Which sound card do I use? Audigy 2 or Realtek ALC882D?

Hi,

I have an Asus P5WD2 Premium mobo. It has the Realtek ALC882D internal sound card (8 channel). I have an older SB Audigy 2 that I bought a few years ago. I am about to do a windows reinstall & I am trying to figure out what the better sound card is so I can determine which one to use.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Rich

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If you dont ahve anything to put the audigy in then go ahead and use it. If its currently being used then my suggestion is to listen to the on-board audio and see if its up to your liking. If not then move the audigy over.
Onboard audio is much better than what it was years ago, but still not as good as the audigy.
It all depends on how you like the sound.

Reply to sturm

I agree. Onboard sound is now a lot better than it used to be but I don't think its as good as from a dedicated PCI card (yet, anyways). If you opt to use your Audigy you'll also get the benefit of its Audio Processing Unit relieving your CPU of audio processing, especially in games. ...that may make or not make a noticable difference. The Audigy will also allow you to enjoy EAX in games.

I'd recommend listening to both. If you really can't discern any audible or performance difference you might as well use the onboard sound...but something tells me that if you explore the Audigy's features and DSP you'll prefer it.

Reply to halcyon

Listen to which you prefer (if possible)

Experience tells me that the PCI card would be better, but if you're using crappy speakers then I wouldn't bother.

Reply to mesarectifier

Definitely the Audigy.

There is no comparison.

99.5% of onboard audio chipsets suck!

Reply to linux_0

Quote :

Definitely the Audigy.

There is no comparison.

99.5% of onboard audio chipsets suck!

Word!
That's EXACTLY what I think!

Reply to Multiplectic

Quote :

Definitely the Audigy.

There is no comparison.

99.5% of onboard audio chipsets suck!

Word!
That's EXACTLY what I think!

Indeed :-D

We are in complete agreement!!!

Live long and prosper!!! :-D

Reply to linux_0

Hmmm 24 bit audio vs 12 or 16 bit onboard....

Custom speaker settings with EAX vs non Creative sound.

I've tried both, and the defintion within my Audigy 2 is far more pleasing on the ears. Especially when you chuck in the CMSS2 effects it just blows away any of the onboard stuff I've heard.

As for load away from the CPU, I thought an onboard audio included an audion sound chip. Maybe I've missunderstood, but that should mean negligible difference in CPU load between onboard and PCI......?

Anybody?

Reply to Tattysnuc

Quote :

Hmmm 24 bit audio vs 12 or 16 bit onboard....

Custom speaker settings with EAX vs non Creative sound.

I've tried both, and the defintion within my Audigy 2 is far more pleasing on the ears. Especially when you chuck in the CMSS2 effects it just blows away any of the onboard stuff I've heard.

As for load away from the CPU, I thought an onboard audio included an audion sound chip. Maybe I've missunderstood, but that should mean negligible difference in CPU load between onboard and PCI......?

Anybody?

Onboard audio does use chips but not very good ones.

The EMU10k+++ series audio processors used by Creative on their cards are much much better.

Reply to linux_0

Just use the Audigy 2. It is better than the onboard audio and is easier on the CPU in games.

Reply to redman2025

I have the P5N32 SLII MB and an Audigy 4....

play some mp3s using your AC97 onboard sound

then watch your CPU usage.... its about 10-15%

Install the audigy 4 play some MP3s agan....

watch your cpu usage..... its about 1-3%

use the audigy..... it will demand less system resources, which could otherwise be used for Games!

Reply to wun911

Quote :

I have the P5N32 SLII MB and an Audigy 4....

play some mp3s using your AC97 onboard sound

then watch your CPU usage.... its about 10-15%

Install the audigy 4 play some MP3s agan....

watch your cpu usage..... its about 1-3%

use the audigy..... it will demand less system resources, which could otherwise be used for Games!

Very Tru64 :-D

It will sound better, perform better and use fewer system resources :-D

Reply to linux_0

Ummm, you even have to ask!?!

USE THE AUDIGY2

Reply to moparman390

I'd prefer they leave onboard sound off the board entirely, and then cut the board's price by the onboard sound's worth...about $10.00.

Reply to halcyon

Quote :

I'd prefer they leave onboard sound off the board entirely, and then cut the board's price by the onboard sound's worth...about $10.00.

Here here! :-D

Reply to linux_0

The $10 might be worth it to you, but I'm guessing that more people than not are using the onboard sound solution.
It's just not viable for someone, like an educational institute, having to add sound cards to their PC's just so people can enjoy a little Flash presentation while they casually browse the internet.

From experience, my Audigy 2 ZS is much, much better than the integrated Realtek ALC850 with Karajan module (DFI); just sounds more clear and natural.
Also, the really subtle signal noise that came from the onboard solution while not listening to anything drove me nuts - justification for upgrading, lolol.

Reply to Damier

I'm not sure about this, but I'm imagining educational instituitions ( ) are, in general, not giving a rat's-azz about HiFi sound quality coming from a PC...if they do care, they're likely pushing a digital signal to a lovely McIntosh pre-amp/amp that they've purchased with the $30K a year we're paying to attend. ...but they're not using an current generation SoundBlaster and Klipsch iFi's for sure.

Reply to halcyon

Quote :

The $10 might be worth it to you, but I'm guessing that more people than not are using the onboard sound solution.
It's just not viable for someone, like an educational institute, having to add sound cards to their PC's just so people can enjoy a little Flash presentation while they casually browse the internet.

From experience, my Audigy 2 ZS is much, much better than the integrated Realtek ALC850 with Karajan module (DFI); just sounds more clear and natural.
Also, the really subtle signal noise that came from the onboard solution while not listening to anything drove me nuts - justification for upgrading, lolol.

What they should do is offer a model with and without onboard sound.

Or put the sound chip on a socket and offer it separately.

:-D

Reply to linux_0

Quote :

The $10 might be worth it to you, but I'm guessing that more people than not are using the onboard sound solution.
It's just not viable for someone, like an educational institute, having to add sound cards to their PC's just so people can enjoy a little Flash presentation while they casually browse the internet.

From experience, my Audigy 2 ZS is much, much better than the integrated Realtek ALC850 with Karajan module (DFI); just sounds more clear and natural.
Also, the really subtle signal noise that came from the onboard solution while not listening to anything drove me nuts - justification for upgrading, lolol.

What they should do is offer a model with and without onboard sound.

Or put the sound chip on a socket and offer it separately.

:-D

...kind of...like this....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813127207

Reply to halcyon

Quote :

The $10 might be worth it to you, but I'm guessing that more people than not are using the onboard sound solution.
It's just not viable for someone, like an educational institute, having to add sound cards to their PC's just so people can enjoy a little Flash presentation while they casually browse the internet.

From experience, my Audigy 2 ZS is much, much better than the integrated Realtek ALC850 with Karajan module (DFI); just sounds more clear and natural.
Also, the really subtle signal noise that came from the onboard solution while not listening to anything drove me nuts - justification for upgrading, lolol.

What they should do is offer a model with and without onboard sound.

Or put the sound chip on a socket and offer it separately.

:-D

...kind of...like this....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813127207

Ya :-D

Kinda like that except non-proprietary

Reply to linux_0

I work as a sound designer in the game industry and i will tell you this. If you have aa premium mobo then onboard sound will be perfectly fine. Forget about that 16/24 bit crap from audigy...any games you play will only have 16 bit audio assets to begin with so it won't matter. Your onboard can probably play 24 bit files anyway. As for eax, your onboard audio will use EAX 2.0...yeah they have eax 5 now but your audigy 2 probably only supports up to 3.0 which wont be that different from 2.0

If you are planning to record with this sound card then it becomes a different issue. If you want good quality recordings buy something like the m-audio audiophile 24/96.

Onboard audio is clean, simple, stable and will sound as good as an AUDIGY 2.

Don't be fooled people...onboard audio is absolutley fine for gaming.

Reply to jamiemb

Quote :

Onboard audio is clean, simple, stable and will sound as good as an AUDIGY 2.

....and will use up processor cycles that I'm guessing you're probably going to want for running other things.

What gaming studio is it you work for?

Reply to mesarectifier

I don't know if that PCI-express card is really proprietary... it looks like it's just a PCI-express sound card, the first I've seen...and it's actually got an SPDIF Optical output. I almost bought that board but I'm glad I got the A8N-SLi Premium

Reply to halcyon

i don't know that on board audio, but i have a live platinium a true oldie but still performs very nice with a full bass and a very good saoun quality comparable to smoe onboard audio.

so my advice, stick with the audigy

Reply to Sonic_Reducer

Quote :

I work as a sound designer in the game industry and i will tell you this. If you have aa premium mobo then onboard sound will be perfectly fine. Forget about that 16/24 bit crap from audigy...any games you play will only have 16 bit audio assets to begin with so it won't matter. Your onboard can probably play 24 bit files anyway. As for eax, your onboard audio will use EAX 2.0...yeah they have eax 5 now but your audigy 2 probably only supports up to 3.0 which wont be that different from 2.0

If you are planning to record with this sound card then it becomes a different issue. If you want good quality recordings buy something like the m-audio audiophile 24/96.

Onboard audio is clean, simple, stable and will sound as good as an AUDIGY 2.

Don't be fooled people...onboard audio is absolutley fine for gaming.

Thank you for your input but I respectfully disagree :-D

Onboard sound suffers from interference, noise, has significantly higher CPU utilization and usually terrible drivers.

Reply to linux_0

Quote :

I don't know if that PCI-express card is really proprietary... it looks like it's just a PCI-express sound card, the first I've seen...and it's actually got an SPDIF Optical output. I almost bought that board but I'm glad I got the A8N-SLi Premium

It uses a 1x PCI-E slot but it's backwards so it is effectively proprietary.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2 [...] sli/3.html

Reply to linux_0

Quote :

I work as a sound designer in the game industry and i will tell you this. If you have aa premium mobo then onboard sound will be perfectly fine. Forget about that 16/24 bit crap from audigy...any games you play will only have 16 bit audio assets to begin with so it won't matter. Your onboard can probably play 24 bit files anyway. As for eax, your onboard audio will use EAX 2.0...yeah they have eax 5 now but your audigy 2 probably only supports up to 3.0 which wont be that different from 2.0

If you are planning to record with this sound card then it becomes a different issue. If you want good quality recordings buy something like the m-audio audiophile 24/96.

Onboard audio is clean, simple, stable and will sound as good as an AUDIGY 2.

Don't be fooled people...onboard audio is absolutley fine for gaming.

Thank you for your input but I respectfully disagree :-D

Onboard sound suffers from interference, noise, has significantly higher CPU utilization and usually terrible drivers.

Same here !!!
Just use the Audigy 2!

Reply to redman2025

I did some sound work on a simple car game (side project) last year and tested it with about 5 different sound boards:

The big differences seemed to be if they supported EAX and whether they popped/crackled during pitchbending (I was pitching engine noise based on speed). I used the Fmod sound engine.

This is from memory but the 5 cards were:

Sound AWE 32 Budget- Supports EAX but popped like mad
Onboard ac97- no EAX popped a bit
Sound Blaster Audigy 2- Supports EAX no popping
TurtleBeach Riveria(Catalina?)- Supports EAX no popping
TurtleBeach Montega- No EAX very slight popping

The Turtle Beach cards were surprisingly good but the more expensive 7.1 card sounded worse then the cheapo 5.1 card.

The Audigy 2 also dropped the frame rate the least, and for some reason had the most convincing doppler effect.

I stayed with the Augidy 2 after the project.

Reply to MagicPants

Forum CPU & Components : Sound Cards - Which sound card do I use? Audigy 2 or Realtek ALC882D?

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Which sound card do I use? Audigy 2 or Realtek ALC882D?

Forum CPU & Components : Sound Cards - Which sound card do I use? Audigy 2 or Realtek ALC882D?

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