Sound Card vs. onboard

[rectifryer]

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.

 

[cadaveca]

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.

 

[eidairaman1]

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.

The ASUS Maximus V Gene says hello:

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/ASUS/Maximus_V_Gene/images/audio_led_on_small.jpg


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 eve nCreative 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 liekwise, 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 sound 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.

 

[rectifryer]

The ASUS Maximus V Gene says hello:

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/ASUS/Maximus_V_Gene/images/audio_led_on_small.jpg


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.

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?

 

[eidairaman1]

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.

 

[cadaveca]

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.

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!

 

[rectifryer]

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

 

[repman244]

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

 

[Dent1]

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.

 

[Capitan Harlock]

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