nForce2 onboard audio, or SoundBlaster Audigy?

If your mobo is A7N8X Deluxe, then the on board sound is better than Audigy in every aspects.

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Use the Audigy (/me wears his flame suit ).
Seriously, why? Because they have near-identical performance in games and Audigy is better in every other respect i.e. much better sound quality, better sound positioning and effects (EAX AdvancedHD), better MIDI support, being less prone to all sorts of EM interference happening on the mobo or inside the case, etc.

Unless, and this is a biggie, you're planning to connect the sound card digitally (which I suppose isn't what you're doing unless you've connected the speakers to a digital-capable receiver) in which case, nForce2 (if it's a Soundstorm board) is better. Search for other fairly recent threads to know exactly why but short version is real-time Dolby Digital 5.1 encoding capability.

nForce2 versus <i>original</i> Audigy?! No contest. The nForce2 is more competitive with the Audigy2, so don't even think about putting that old sound card in. Even the first nForce audio soution smashed the Audigy.

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Hey, not looking for a flame war. Go do a search for reviews and see for yourself. They're few and far between, sadly; it seems that nobody except Creative believed that onboard audio could compete with add-in sound until about three months ago, and they fast-tracked their Audigy2 so that nobody would compare the original Audigy to the nForce2.

<font color=blue>Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself.</font color=blue><font color=green>
<i>Canadian Flight Safety periodical, ~1987</i></font color=green>

i have to throw my hat in with r2k, you have got to think, this is creatives business they are going to have better sound quality than a video chipset makers FIRST audio solution.
they've been doing midi, eax and directsound for years and years.
btw the audio was not changed from nforce1 to the nforce2.

i am also a nforce2 user, also have a audigy1 and had the same dilemma.
one thing that puts the audigy head and shoulders above the nforce audio is eax3 support.. regardless of how many games use it (i know GTA3/vice city does), its there.

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Athlon 1700+, Epox 8RDA (NForce2), Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9 80GB 8MB cache, 2x256mb Crucial PC2100 in Dual DDR, Geforce 3, Audigy, Z560s, MX500