If I buy a Sound Card will my PC speed increase?

ladic

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Jun 19, 2003
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I currently use onboard Audio from my MOBO which is an ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe and the Onboard Audio is:Realtek ALC650.
It sounds pretty Good, but i want to make the jump to Audigy 2Zs.
Since the onboard sound sucks in some CPU power to it, If I buy the Audigy, will I notice a performance increase on my PC? or i wont be noticeable?
 

folken

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Sep 15, 2002
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You might notice a little change but it isn't going to be leaps and bounds. I got a couple more fps in HL2 by going to a audigy 2zs plat, lol.

<A HREF="http://www.folken.net/myrig.htm" target="_new">My precious...</A>
 

RichPLS

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I think your dreaming to get 2 - 3 fps improvement. 2 or 3 percent of freed CPU utilization, yes, maybe even a 4% improvement.

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all the audiolgy cards dont offload audio from the cpu.
they are cheap and cheerful cards that use the cpu to do most of there work.
there basically amplifiers with a little bit of audio tech in a chip to enable eax compatibility.

if you want to get back your 2% of cpu power then the xtreme gamer is the lowest end product in the sound blaster range that does offload from the cpu.
if your buying a sound card just to free up cpu resources then your wasting your money.
if your getting a card to get better sound then feel free to get the audioligy 2.
 
Yes some models have hardware DSP processing and use the EMU10K2.5 chipset.
SB0350 Audigy 2 ZS and the earlier SB0240 Audigy 2 have it.
I know i own both of them.
Audigy2 SE and Value model don't have any hardware processing.
The Audigy2 and ZS were not cheap cards when released and the best you could get at the time.