Audio Card.. Should I buy one?

[slidai]

I have a Striker Extreme mobo and yes I have the add on audio card but my case is making it hard to fit in and work. So I was wondering about a seperate sound card.

I have always used intergrated sound that comes with the mobo... but somoene was saying that with a seperate sound card, you get better performance. Is this true? Should i snag a high end sound card?

 

[nzxtlexa]

hi slidai,

I have the same mb and am also using the sound card that came with it.
Firstly it depends a lot on your audio setup and the quality of your speakers. If you have some cheap 2.1s then it may not be worth it, but with 5.1 Bose (just as an example) it would definetely be worth it.

Also you say that you have trouble fitting the onboard card. Most other sound cards will be bigger than the integrated one and so you won't really gain anything - you will have more trouble fitting it in.

hope this helps

 

[Guest]

if you play games damm sure... get a good creative sound card...like X-fi xtreme gamer... and i bet you won't go back to onboard sound card..

 

[slidai]

Ok well i guess i should explain a little more.

I have been playing WoW for a long time. Thats all i have ever really played. Two days ago i got all my stuff for my new system.. Q6600, two Asus 8800GT's, 4GB Crucial ram, etc etc. I have Crysis, Oblivion and alot of other games (since i work at best buy its cheap).

The audio card that came with my mobo as you know is a PCI 1x. It fits into the mobo fine... its the metal that sticks out the back of the computer thats the problem. Its just the case, not the audio card itself. I went out and got a normal little sound card from creative which fits into a large PCI slot and it works fine.

But my main question is... do you get better game performance with a sound card (like it says on the box even though i know thats probably a lie) vs just regular intergrated audio.

The problem is, as far as i can tell, this mobo was meant to use at least the audio card that comes with it, there is no onboard audio. So... in order to talk on vent and hear anything... i have to get something. I was just wondering if it was worth to upgrade to a high enx X-fi card (again will i get better FPS and performance?) or should I just keep my regular cheap lil sound blaster card.

 

[4745454b]

The thinking goes like this. With onboard audio, your cpu has to process all the audio threads. If you have a soundcard, the soundcard processes them, freeing up your CPU to do other things. Here is where things get tricky. Back in the days of quake one and the original pentium, you could get better frame rates by installing a SC, or even by turning the audio off. I haven't seen ANYTHING since then that says you can get meaningful increases by doing this. It has been suggested by some that the audio threads aren't very CPU intensive, and modern CPUs can handle them fine. Its my belief that installing a SC won't increase your frame rates by much, if it does at all.

What you do get is a much better/cleaner sound. If you have a good set of speakers, installing a sound card will let you use them to their fullest. On board simply doesn't have a good enough SNR to put out a clean sound. If you want better sound, or EAX 4 or higher, get a soundcard. If you have a cheap <$100 set of speakers, stay with the onboard.

 

[slidai]

Well as it stands now, i have the Augility SE which i got for like 15 bucks on employee discount. It seemed fine to me but I got an echo when talking on Vent which was annoying as hell. I have not played around with it to see if i can remove the echo. I am still fiddling with which OS i want to use on my new comp so i am running tests but. However, i did play CRysis for a bit with the card in and i could tell a difference in the sound just on my headset, so thats why i was thinking about getting the top of line sound card and a good set of speakers to go with it. The clincher was the better performance which i understand might only be like 1-5 fps but that along with better sound might be something i am interested in.

 

[sailer]

It seemed fine to me but I got an echo when talking on Vent which was annoying as hell. I have not played around with it to see if i can remove the echo.

My experience has been that using a mike with external speakers allowed the sound from the speakers to go back through the mike and then feed back into the speakers. Extremely annoying at best. As a result, I only use headphones when using a mike, causing a disconnect to the external speakers.

Game speed increase varies, but I've usually found it to be in the 2-5 fps area. Not a lot, but at least something. I've always found better sound to be the main thing. Then again, I have a Klipsch THX 500wt 5.1 speaker setup, so it takes advantage of the better sound card.

 

[computertech82]

Typical on-board audio takes about 20% of the cpu resources, DSP sound cards take around 5-10%. Boils down for only a few fps (2-5). If the on-board "skips" sound and such odd affects, having a actual DSP sound card can help in that area.
My on-board does it's job fine, and with a good headset i use, it's good enough for me.

 

[slidai]

OK well i put back in the SE card.. but i am still having the same damn problem. I only use headphones and i still get the echo when i didi the test hardware. The mic is in the mic in spot... and headphones are in the green hole. Any idea?

 

[clintox]

Wow, I have that same Audigy SE card and when in BF2 it echoes too. My onboard (SoundMax HD) doesn't. It started happening when I changed the BF2 sound setting to hardware instead of software. I think my onboard is better than the card. Change it back to software and it's fine. Obviously, hardware would be better.

I don't really know what I just said, but you aren't alone with echoing with this card... I got mine for like $30 bucks at WalMart, so I can have speakers and headphones.

 

[bobbknight]

Wow onboard audio takes up 20% of the cpu wow.
I just tested this on my system.
It's nothing special an old Asus board with sound onboard.
I have 10 open windows and in vlc player playing coldplay, my system resources bounce from 96 to 98 percent unused.
I guess I'll have to dust off the old 133MHZ pentium to see what that does. If it still works after sitting in storage for 5 years. LOL

 

[aevm]

Typical on-board audio takes about 20% of the cpu resources, DSP sound cards take around 5-10%.

OK, that's too sweeping a statement. It's true on some older CPUs, I guess.
I have a Q6600 and X-Fi XtremeMusic. Winamp shows up in Task Manager as 0% CPU usage, and stays there forever. I think that means under 1%, not 5-10%. PowerDVD is shown at 2%, occasionally dropping to 1% or 0%, and that includes video too.

I wouldn't buy a sound card just for performance gains. Buy it if you have expensive speakers and good ears and care a lot about music quality.