# Sound Card vs. onboard



## Zaspera (Jun 21, 2012)

I've always used onboard sound for my headphones/speakers. I'm wondering if a cheap (~$30) sound card like http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0355812would out-perform the onboard sound of http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0387554. This might be a dumb question but I've just never cared about sound cards so I don't know what to look for. Thanks.


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## KainXS (Jun 21, 2012)

what speakers/headphones do you have though


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## Hayder_Master (Jun 21, 2012)

for me i see no difference, i have great sound card also great speaker and headset, and i didn't notice anything better in sound quality on sound card compare with on board sound, maybe just in "Stalker clear sky" just a bit, other gamers or music - movies = nothing.


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## natr0n (Jun 21, 2012)

A real sound card is usually always better than on board.

I read about Xonar series have crappy drivers, but there are some fan made drivers for it. so that's not an issue.


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## INSTG8R (Jun 21, 2012)

Yes you would hear a difference with that sound card if you had a decent set of headphones or speakers. If you just using a cheap headset/speakers then the "cheap" onboard will be fine.


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## erocker (Jun 21, 2012)

It depends. I've had onboard sound that is simply horrible. I've also used onboard sound that worked great. It depends if you are satisfied with what you are using. Do you have any specific complaints about your onboard sound?


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## D007 (Jun 21, 2012)

In regards to performace I'd think having a SC is better than not.. Having sound independently run on the card relieves stress on the system from what I've been told. I have seen game sounds make a game stutter and even crash. Can't help but think better hardware could alleviate some of those issues.


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## erocker (Jun 21, 2012)

D007 said:


> Having sound independently run on the card relieves stress on the system from what I've been told.



It's true, but on modern computers the difference is negligible and not a factor in getting a sound card. Personally, whenever I get a new motherboard I test the onboard sound first. If I like it, I use it. If not, I have a few sound cards to pop in to see what I like best for that particular configuration.


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## Zaspera (Jun 21, 2012)

I don't have the mobo yet. It's for a new build and was just wondering if a sound card would help sound. I usually use cheap speakers for like $30 and have never complained about sound quality. I just thought maybe a sound card would make a HUGE difference. If it's pretty minimal (if any at all), then I'll save the $30 and get some cheeseburgers.


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## erocker (Jun 21, 2012)

Zaspera said:


> I don't have the mobo yet. It's for a new build and was just wondering if a sound card would help sound. I usually use cheap speakers for like $30 and have never complained about sound quality. I just thought maybe a sound card would make a HUGE difference. If it's pretty minimal (if any at all), then I'll save the $30 and get some cheeseburgers.



Good idea. Cheeseburgers are awesome. Really though, test it out. If you're satisfied with the onboard you're good.


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## Kei (Jun 21, 2012)

In my experience I've found that I cannot live without my Xonar D1. I used onboard sound on everything until one day I decided to try out a card, and that particular one happend to be on sale for a good price with rebate.

My main reason was that I couldn't run surround sound with games on my motherboard without a soundcard (important to me), so that was my only choice or live with 2 channel sound. After installing the card I wanted to cry it was soo good (just listening to music and watching movies, not to mention games at all).

For my the difference is absolutely night and day, a few months back my card didn't start up and I had to enable onboard sound again...I was hunting on newegg within 20 minutes after hearing onboard again lol. Thankfully there was nothing wrong with the car, it was just me being lazy for a bit and I hadn't dusted my case in a while. Cleaned it off and not a hiccup since.

I wasn't a believer before, but now there is no way I'll go back. 

Asus Xonar D1 

Kei

*edit:* I forgot to say that I use a Razer Carcharias headset, and a 600w 5.1 Home theater system with my PC (most of the time it's the theater system)


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## repman244 (Jun 21, 2012)

Zaspera said:


> I just thought maybe a sound card would make a HUGE difference.



It does if you have higher end headphones/speakers. It would be insane to use $300 Headphones from onboard, heck even using it from better sound cards (Xonar ST/STX) is really pushing it (you get limited by the amplifier of the sound card).
In your case, you would probably hear a small improvement but not much.


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## BumbleBee (Jun 22, 2012)

bank some money and buy something nice or buy the cheeseburgers


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## micropage7 (Jun 22, 2012)

another the reason why add on soundcard is better beside better hardware/chip is it has its own board so it would minimize any electric interfere that could affect the sound quality thats why some highend motherboards put dedicated pcix 1x soundcard in their package
add on card made for serious needs not like onboard (except for high end motherboards)


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## rectifryer (Jun 22, 2012)

Reference wont necessarily sound "Better" but it will be a more fathful representation.  Its had to discern at first until your ears are familiar with how things should sound so its a bit of a catch 22.


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## hat (Jun 23, 2012)

I have an Asus Xonar DG. It's a pretty good card, never let me down. The internal headphone amp is great as well. I'm sure the quality is lacking in the face of discrete headphone amps, but it's a nice feature to have.


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## SnoopKatt (Jun 25, 2012)

I love my Auzentech CMI8770. I got it off another forum for really cheap, and it does an amazing job. My speakers are pretty old (literally about 30 years old lol), and even on those, I can totally hear the difference between the sound card and onboard audio.

However, an internal sound card isn't always the best solution. It really depends on what you use. If you use strictly headphones, an external DAC paired with a headphone amplifier will probably be more suitable. If you can solder, this guy came up with an excellent design:

http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/

Hope this helps!


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## rectifryer (Jun 25, 2012)

Latency is also another factor to consider.


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## eidairaman1 (Jun 25, 2012)

Audio is not as speed intensive as video is.

The PCI and PCI E x1 bus have low enough latency and enough bandwidth to transmit audio data from a Program to the Audio card to be decrypted by it.


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## SnoopKatt (Jun 25, 2012)

rectifryer said:


> Latency is also another factor to consider.



Very true. Some audio cards also use the CPU to decode audio. Doesn't sound like a big deal, but I kid you not, when I installed my card, I could've sworn I lost 5 to 10 FPS ( roughly 60 to 50)!


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## eidairaman1 (Jun 25, 2012)

SnoopKatt said:


> Very true. Some audio cards also use the CPU to decode audio. Doesn't sound like a big deal, but I kid you not, when I installed my card, I could've sworn I lost 5 to 10 FPS ( roughly 60 to 50)!



sounds like a issue elsewhere, because when you have a card installed it offloads the audio processing from the CPU to the Sound card so that the CPU can handle other tasks.


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## SnoopKatt (Jun 25, 2012)

Perhaps. It was installed on the PCI bus; maybe the transport is eating up the CPU time?


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## eidairaman1 (Jun 25, 2012)

SnoopKatt said:


> Perhaps. It was installed on the PCI bus; maybe the transport is eating up the CPU time?



more like a driver issue, or something else u have running is eating time into it


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## cadaveca (Jun 25, 2012)

eidairaman1 said:


> sounds like a issue elsewhere, because when you have a card installed it offloads the audio processing from the CPU to the Sound card so that the CPU can handle other tasks.



Some cards are no different than an onboard CODEC on a seperate PCB.


Mind you, audio processing by CPU that most people use onboard audio/seperate cards for on newer systems amounts to less than 1 % CPU usage.

Audio quality for onboard CODECs can vary greatly. I just recently tested one motherboard that very nearly put my D2X to shame, and it's from a company i bet none would guess at first.


I've tested many many boards now...only four have what I personally consider decent audio. However, would that cheap Xonar card be better? In most instances...yes! Would you notice on cheap speakers? YES, if they are set up properly...proper stereo imaging requires speakers about 6 feet apart...at when set up properly, spacial cues like positional audio do tend to be better with the majority of add-in boards. This same exact reason is why most people would prefer headphones for gaming, and rave about positional audio...because desktop speakers are rarely, if ever, spaced properly.


That said, onboard audio, today, is miles above and beyond what it used to be, even just three years ago. But of course, there are some really poopy audio circuit designs that really negatively affect the ability of onboard CODECs to do a decent job.


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## eidairaman1 (Jun 25, 2012)

its odd i never had the issue with positional audio from speakers even if they werent spaced properly, I also notice certain DSPs are shared. I still use X230 speakers because they work just fine. If i need team communication id hang a headset around my neck because of how uncomfortable they can be (no matter what headset ive used my ears always get sore- not from the sound but from them laying on my head)

The biggest advantage for sound cards is the audio processing is isolated better from other noisy components compared to onboard audio.



cadaveca said:


> Some cards are no different than an onboard CODEC on a seperate PCB.
> 
> 
> Mind you, audio processing by CPU that most people use onboard audio/seperate cards for on newer systems amounts to less than 1 % CPU usage.
> ...


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## rectifryer (Jun 25, 2012)

SnoopKatt said:


> Very true. Some audio cards also use the CPU to decode audio. Doesn't sound like a big deal, but I kid you not, when I installed my card, I could've sworn I lost 5 to 10 FPS ( roughly 60 to 50)!



From my research, its probably just the difference between the drivers.  But if you can't use good drivers with the onboard audio, then the card is better anyways.  

I have only looked into latency.  Soundblaster has had their drivers specialized for DX for lower latency.  Its hard to explain, but the lower latency <10ms helps with the realism of the games .  I dont really care about that so much as recording.  I would never use soundblaster anything for recording no matter its latency.


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## cadaveca (Jun 25, 2012)

eidairaman1 said:


> The biggest advantage for sound cards is the audio processing is isolated better from other noisy components compared to onboard audio.





The ASUS Maximus V Gene says hello:








There are red LEDs iluminating the PCB itself, showing how it is isolated...

It's very nearly completely electrically seperated. However, the board i just tested, which is not this V Gene, is BETTER, and it's not isolated at all...

I mean, sure this has been an issue in the past, and can be an issues now with some products, and even Creative moaned about noise on the PCIe bus, and gave that noise as a reason for not releasing a PCIe add-on card...and then they eventually released a PCIe card.

So what changed Creative's stance?

Perhaps a change in CODEC design prevented this from being an issue? And perhaps this same change could be added to onboard solutions as well?


And likewise, they said that noise was an issue _for an add-in card_.


ASUS Xonar D2X has a PCIe bridge chip that features error correction, which also removes noise...and it sounds BETTER than the PCI variant of the same audio card...

In the end, it's just not quite as cut and dry as it used to be, and issues that affected things in the past, aren't so much of an issue today.


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## eidairaman1 (Jun 25, 2012)

For CL- its either get with the program or become defunct as a company: CL was just trying to control the Audio market considering during the 90s they were the defacto- now You have Asus, Auzentec (Pre CL DSP) HT Omega, BGears (Blue Gears) amongst others- EAX is rarely used anymore aswell

You notice it was the same thing when it was stated PEG is to Replace AGP- Both Nvidia and AMD (ATI at the time) Moved their top boards to PCI E- now both companies entire lineups are that way.



cadaveca said:


> The ASUS Maximus V Gene says hello:
> 
> http://tpucdn.com/reviews/ASUS/Maximus_V_Gene/images/audio_led_on_small.jpg
> 
> ...


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## rectifryer (Jun 25, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> The ASUS Maximus V Gene says hello:
> 
> http://tpucdn.com/reviews/ASUS/Maximus_V_Gene/images/audio_led_on_small.jpg
> 
> ...



You seem to have experience with this.  What is your process for testing these matters?   How can I bench the noise and latency of an audio card?


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## eidairaman1 (Jun 25, 2012)

rectifryer said:


> You seem to have experience with this.  What is your process for testing these matters?   How can I bench the noise and latency of an audio card?



Noise is Electrical Noise- aka Electro Magnetic Interference

it varies from board to board.

The most common EMI ive encountered with Onboard audio is moving a mouse around- you can hear a change in tone of the audio whenever a mouse was being moved or a lil whine noise. Ive heard Optical drives spinning up causing that too. Customer machines that came to me complaining of hearing odd noise from their audio port, Id put a card in and problem solved.


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## cadaveca (Jun 25, 2012)

rectifryer said:


> You seem to have experience with this.  What is your process for testing these matters?   How can I bench the noise and latency of an audio card?





http://audio.rightmark.org/index_new.shtml






I kinda use my ears and other stuff too. 



			
				eidairaman1 said:
			
		

> The most common EMI ive encountered with Onboard audio is moving a mouse around- you can hear a change in tone of the audio whenever a mouse was being moved or a lil whine noise. Ive heard Optical drives spinning up causing that too. Customer machines that came to me complaining of hearing odd noise from their audio port, Id put a card in and problem solved.



Sure, common ground shared with the port the mouse plugs into, and still an issue with some products. There's a tonne of noise my current board puts out...the onboard audio doesn't pick it up, but my guitar sure does!


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## rectifryer (Jun 26, 2012)

Thanks alot for that!  Do you know of any software that can check latency?

This is what i have found so far:

http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml


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## repman244 (Jun 26, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> ASUS Xonar D2X has a PCIe bridge chip that features error correction, which also removes noise...and it sounds BETTER than the PCI variant of the same audio card...



Are you sure about that, because with the Essence ST/STX it's the exact opposite. The STX (PCI-e) version worse than the ST due to the clock/crystal and replacing it with something like Vanguard 0.3ppm TCXO resulted in much better sound for some people.
However it could be different with the D2X


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## Dent1 (Jun 26, 2012)

eidairaman1 said:


> sounds like a issue elsewhere, because when you have a card installed it offloads the audio processing from the CPU to the Sound card so that the CPU can handle other tasks.



In theory, but it's not always true. I had higher CPU usage on my old X-fi Forte than I do today using my video cards built in audio. 

Also I noticed the most CPU activity with dedicated cards when encoding Dolby Digital Live in real time.


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## Capitan Harlock (Jun 26, 2012)

for my experience with 2 sound cards, bring a sound cards depends from what is your budget and what you need,i have use a 5.1 soundcard from trust and an external 5.1 from creative and the difference when you use headphone with sound card intregrated and extal depends from the drivers , my actual headphone are usb , the external audio use jack to jack cable to a kenwood amplifire and 2 very big kenwood stereo speakers for use audio from hdmi ,for my 5.1 on pc i use the realtek integrated with realtek hd drivers and with this 5.1 home cinema from bluesky ,the difference to me is the system , good external amplifire or good 5.1 system (for use this 5.1 i have bring 3 jack to rca cables ) , if you have to use powerfull headphone ,bring a soundcard ,if you have to bring a system ,if the motherboard is good ,integrated audio is good as well buts its all your choice xd


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