[Firefox]

I have a PCI sound card and on my new mobo (delivered in two days) a realtek HD ALC888 chipset...which ones better?

1)Creative Sound Blaster Live! CT4780 OEM From a Dell
(I can use the hacked Audigy II software on it)

2) Realtek ALC888 HD Audio from an ASROCK 775Dual/VSTA

Which one will be better in terms of performance and quality?

Both gonna run in a C2D Rig...

I've heard that using a PCI card takes the lag of using software synthesising...is this true? so it improves the fps in games, and overall pc perfomance?

http://i17.ebayimg.com/04/i/05/d9/4d/73_1_b.JPG

[ImperfectSense]

I believe the ALC888 has it's own chipset, so it doesn't steal power from the CPU, so that's not an issue

I would use the ALC888, and if you're happy with the sound, keep using it. if you're unhappy with the sound, then you'll have to figure out where the problem is... is it with the audio itself? with the audio card? with the cables? or with the speakers?

[Firefox]

ImperfectSense, on Jan 8 2007, 06:53 PM, said:

I believe the ALC888 has it's own chipset, so it doesn't steal power from the CPU, so that's not an issue

I would use the ALC888, and if you're happy with the sound, keep using it. if you're unhappy with the sound, then you'll have to figure out where the problem is... is it with the audio itself? with the audio card? with the cables? or with the speakers?

I'm recieving the mobo today for my new C2D system...hope to check it out then...I was just asking your opinions on the sound quality and performance with either of the two devices...

If i'm correct, I also know that you can use the NVidia NVmixer with realtek products and install the nvidia mcp audio drivers which are pretty much like the soundstorm...ahh those wer the dayz "Sound Storm"...

[ImperfectSense]

I haven't tried this... I might, since I have that audio chipset and it's driver support in Vista is bad right now...

the Windows logon sound is perfectly normal, but all sounds within the OS (once the drivers all get loaded) are washed out. I just haven't bothered trying to find a fix yet.

[Archer1978]

On board graphics take 5 - 10% of your cpu time. Yes you might think your onboard sounds better but i would advise disabling it and using your creative sound card.

Yes its also true it helps with lag etc in some games, because of the cpu using that 5 - 10%, but not really much that you will notice.

II recommend disabling onboard and usning the creative. B)

[ImperfectSense]

dude, statistics like yours are completely made up... first of all you said "graphics" and I think you mean "sound"... second of all it depends on the sound chipset, whether it has a seperate processing chip or not, and whether that chip can handle the load of whatever is being asked of it, which means it depends on what you're doing.

the Realtek HD chipsets should not under any circumstances take away cpu processing power. nVidia is not that stupid to put a crappy chipset on their flagship motherboards.

[lhuser]

The creative card is a good card. Better than the onboard one. It might use it's own chipset, but if it doesn't have AC'97 on it, it's okay to use the onboard. Although, a PCI sound card never hurts :thumbsup2:

This post has been edited by lhuser: 10 January 2007 - 04:26 AM

[ImperfectSense]

in my experience, anything AC97 or above sounds just the same as a SB card, because most people don't invest the $300 into speakers that you need to invest to actually tell a difference. If you don't have at least $200 speakers... or if when you test speakers at Best Buy you can't tell which speakers are $100 and which are $300 while blindfolded... then you will not be able to tell a difference between QUALITY of the output on these two sound boards. now, as to which has the best settings so that by default it sounds best on your speakers... that depends on a lot of things. if you really cared about sound quality, you should be very familliar with all the tweaking and settings changes that need to be made for any card/speaker combination to get the best balance. if the limit of your tweaking is to crank up the bass and verify that left and right are equal... then again, you are not an audiophile, your ears do not even detect the sort of quality or balance difference that makes sound blaster cards or klipsch speakers necessary.

[Firefox]

So is it better to stick with the realtek...and plus the SB hasn't got proper front panel headers...it was ripped out of a Dell Dimension 4400.

Guys, do you know the pinouts for the OEM Sound blaster, (the white header) as shown in my first post?

[ImperfectSense]

this should cover just about everything: http://www.driverhea...ead.php?t=51505

[lhuser]

ImperfectSense, on Jan 9 2007, 10:25 PM, said:

in my experience, anything AC97 or above sounds just the same as a SB card, because most people don't invest the $300 into speakers that you need to invest to actually tell a difference. If you don't have at least $200 speakers... or if when you test speakers at Best Buy you can't tell which speakers are $100 and which are $300 while blindfolded... then you will not be able to tell a difference between QUALITY of the output on these two sound boards. now, as to which has the best settings so that by default it sounds best on your speakers... that depends on a lot of things. if you really cared about sound quality, you should be very familliar with all the tweaking and settings changes that need to be made for any card/speaker combination to get the best balance. if the limit of your tweaking is to crank up the bass and verify that left and right are equal... then again, you are not an audiophile, your ears do not even detect the sort of quality or balance difference that makes sound blaster cards or klipsch speakers necessary.

Actually, it's not the sound quality I looked at. It's the IRQs and resources it can take. It improves to have a sound card...but if the card has it's chipset right in, it should have it's own resources.

If you speak of terms of quality, I would prefer the AC97.

[ImperfectSense]

IRQ's are assigned by the BIOS... no sound card has it's own IRQ's... and while a sound card uses all of the resources of a full blown PCI slot, an onboard sound chipset only needs to use the resources it needs, and not hog anything it doesn't... how is a seperate card better than onboard in that respect?

[Firefox]

Also I need about 3 Inputs for Audio to the sound, whilst onboard has only one input...1 for my capture card, 1 for dvdrw, 1 for modem

...but i really dont think its not neccessary for the latter two to be connected,

Im thinking of using the AC'97 Realtek then...

But whats the best software synthesiser/mixer app for it....as many onboard companies such as C-Media, nforce MCPs, realtek use AC'97 and you can mix and match different software that will compatiblly work., such as nvMixer and Realtek mixer