Onboard Sound too quiet [Gigabyte 770 UD3P]

Hello TH members,

I recently built myself a new rig for general use such as listening to music, gaming and watching movies.

AMD Phenom 720 BE 2.8GHZX
OCZ Platinum 2x2GB DDR3
GIGABYTE GA-MA770T-UD3P
CASE ANTEC THREE HUNDRED
PSU FATAL1TY 550W Modular
HDD Western Digital 640GB + Seagate 160GB HDD
Windows XP SP3 32 Bit (Didn't bother with 64 bit)

I have no complaints with it (big improvement from a pentium d) therefore the sound is very quiet and my ears are used to a much louder sound from an ECS motherboard with built in sound!

I'm aware that this mobo (GA-MA770T-UD3P) has onboard sound however from what I heard in the reviews the sound was meant to be very good. Iv'e installed all the correct drivers, I have the realtek sound manager icon bottom right, and everything has been installed correctly. So why is the sound rubbish, dull and quiet as a mouse?

Oh and yes I have notched the volume up to max already on everything!

Any suggestions would be good, and one last thing; I'm using headphones.

Thanks