I am looking at putting together a AMD64 system one of these days. When putting together a new system, I have a standard list of stuff I always get, including a sound card. Is that really needed? I don’t have a surround-sound setup for my PC. (I have Monsoon speakers, and won’t be going to 5.1 or 7.1 for a while)
Would I take a performance hit of any sort by using on-board audio? Also, would the quality be OK? (Subjective, I know, but…) I am mostly concerned about potential performance hits.
There’s no performance hit. On-board sound cards are connected throught the PCI bus, just like a typical sound card.
…and depending on the mobo you get for that CPU, it might even have multi channel sound - I just picked up a MSI K8N Neo2 for my AMD64 build (can’t give you any reviews, the memory should arrive tomorrow), and it says right here it has onboard 7.1 channel support - didn’t even realize it when I made the purchase. In my grand tradition of taking on questions to existing threads, I would like to throw this one out there - can I expect good quality 7.1 sound from a motherboard? Its Realtek ALC850 sound, if that makes a difference…
With the performance question out of the way, I too would like to know if I can expect comparable sound from an onboard controller (Whatever Gigabyte uses), or if I should be tacking a Soundblaster Audigy to the list.
Well, The Tech Report did some benchmarking of various sound cards in Counterstrike:Source, and the game ran ~4-5 frames per second slower using integrated sound, than with a sound card with hardware acceleration. That was a 10% performance hit in that game.
As for sound quality, I would wager that your speaker quality is more important than the sound card, unless you have really good ears.
I doubt output sound would be any different to your ears. I’d assume that a high quality sound card isn’t designed for special sound output, but for sound input/processing. My Soundblaster Live! Platinum has all sorts of special inputs and sound processing features that I doubt would be included in a mobo onboard sound sytem.
I use the mobo sound on computers that only play games. Modern 5.1, 6.1 and 7.1 mobo sound systems are probably as good as my old Live! is (minus digital out, midi in and out and an internal bay).
Most modern MBs with integrated sound have sound quality at least as giood as a SB Live which is fine for most games and music. As others have indicated, paying for premium sound cards generally gets you more input - output options re processing and mastering. The quality and SN ratio may also be better with premium cards, but you will never hear that difference just using it for games and playing MP3’s, even with a nice set of speakers.
I have almost the exact same motherboard, only with less sound options. Put my PC together very recently. The only problem I had was apparently that one of my DDR sticks failed. If the one I put in to replace it fails, then I’ll have some complaints, but otherwise it has been fine. I don’t notice any problems with using the audio noticibly slowing down the computer, but at best I have two browser windows and CivIII open. I haven’t tried pushing my PC at all with the sound card in use.