Onboard audio vs SBLive

[frozentax]

I'm not too familiar with onboard audio, but the motherboard I'm looking to get has Realtek ALC650 6-channel audio. I currently have a SoundBlaster Live! X-Gamer card (about 3-4 years old or so). In terms of sound quality and processing, is the onboard audio a better bet? I assume onboard doesn't have features such as EAX, etc? Thanks for the help!

 

[sturm]

What kind of speakers are u using. If all you have is a two speaker setup then you probably wont notice any difference. The onboard sound chips are alot better than they used to be. You can start out using the onboard sound and see if you like it. You can always install the sblive later to see if there is a difference.

 

[TKH]

Just a reminder, if the mobo you're looking at has nForce2 APU equipped, the on board sound is far better than SBLive! The nForce2 APU also use ALC650 as the CODEC.

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[ariker]

If you have a speaker without decoder, live is better. Because live have decoder but if you have a speaker with decoder,such as creative 5700 nforce2 apu is better...