Should I ditch Asus p5n32 onboard sound?

[Wakke]

Heya,

I have a Asus p5n32, running Windows XP. The onboard sound promises to deliver 7.1, but I get very unsatisfying results. Most of the time only the 2 front speakers work. I have all the latest drivers and bios. I have tried to gather info on this issue, but I get the impression the onboard sound is just crap.

Does anyone know a solution? And if not, what 7.1 sound card can you recommend? I need good performance in games, I don't need fancy peripherals like remote controls etc.

Thanks for your time!

 

[Statross]

if your 7.1 sound isnt working then any cheap Trust soundcard or any cheap brand will be good.

other than that, x-fi cards arent as costly as they used to be, esspecially with newer, cheaper models being introduced/
of course, with a creative card it pays to have creative 7.1 speakers because they only use 3 wires, not 4, so you need a 2-in-to-1 adapter (i think!)

turtle beach seem to have a good rep..and Xmeridian and Xplosion (by auztec or something similar) have rave reviews.

 

[Fulmar]

No matter what I've seen Motherboard boxes print about their onboard sound capabilities, they have always been very disappointing. Especially with someone with a 7.1 setup, you should really look at the X-fi cards, the xtreme music and gamer should fit you fine.

On a motherboard box, they may proclaim 20 channels and a load of other features, but in my experiece, you get what you pay for. And that is - free. Most every board has onboard audio nowadays and they're pretty useless.

 

[Statross]

onboard audio is definatelyn not useless, its an incredibly useful bundle.

as far as quality goes, its definately improved, consumers demanded more from on-board audio and they got it, higher fidelity connectors and chips and codecs.

today onboard audio impacts the processor greatly compared to an add-in with its own processor and on-board is also vastly inferior with respect to SNR, frequencies and almost any other measurable figure..but only AFTER a certain point and that point is the differential:

most people listen to MP3s, AVI films and do so through crap-to-mid range 2-5.1 speakers. for all those things even 2 year old on board will sound no different to a great add-in card. for future-proofing, theres no topping an add-in card, theyre better and you wont need to update your motherboard for better audio.

if you have spent >$300 on speakers then you will wnat a good sound card, if you listen to MP3s the difference may be negligable, but for almost all other audio there will be a good difference.

if you have spent $40 on speakers, theres no pooint in a good soundacard, no point even in a rubbish soundcard for 7.1 because all mo/bos have that now too.

so prioritise, if you're going to buy a $200 soundcard because its the bollocks, then great (i did)...but buy the speakers to do it justice or dont waste the money in the first place

 

[Acethechosenone]

my motherboard's onboard sound is quite good, even with speakers not especially meant for computers. are you sure you are plugging the speakers right? i am sure yours has the alteck utility that has this nifty wizard that you have to configure every time you boot up windows to set up 7.1.

 

[Wakke]

I'm thinking about going for the X-FI Xtreme Gmr Fatality Pro 7.1. Any one got any experience with this one?

BTW, I already have Creative Inspire T7900 speakers.

 

[Acethechosenone]

^are you sure that you have set the appropriate setting in the sound effects manager in the control panel? it has to be set everytime you start up windows, it could be the reason why only the front 2 speakers are working :!: :!:

 

[Statross]

i have the fatality with the i/o panel, its a great card, the software is ridiculous....its about the whole CDs worth, so if you dont want it then just let windows install the driver then DL the new driver.

the only annoyance with this card is not the card but the software, it has modes and try as i might, after you set the default mode in set-up i cant find anyway to change it to another default mode:/

other than that, if its the one with xRAM benchmarks show it does nothing for games, but i dont think there are games that natively support it...and there probbaly never will be unless creative buys a publisher or developer