Upgrading - use old sound card or MoBo?

Associate
Joined
19 May 2004
Posts
939
Location
Horsham, West Sussex
I am just rebuilding my computer and have to decide whether to use my old dedicated sound card or just stick to the one on the motherboard.

My old card is a VideoLogic Sonic Fury which supports 6 channel sound.

My motherboard is an Asus A8N-E - the embedded sound processor is based on ALC850 8 channel CODEC.

I'm not a sound expert - sound on my PC is for games and that's about it.

At the moment I just use stereo, with some reasonable Yamaha speakers although I may upgrade to surround later on.

Just from reading the specs the one onboard the mobo sounds better - has more channels, digital out, plug and play sockets so you can plug headsets in without having to change the setting. It would certainly be neater using the onboard sound.

But that's about my knowledge ... is there any reason why I should use the Sonic Fury instead?

Cheers,

Nigel
 
Soldato
Joined
1 Dec 2002
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2,837
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Cornwall
i must admit that onboard audio has gotten a lot better recently, and if your just gaming stick with whats on the motherboard. I was suitably impressed with the sound on my GA K8N Sli Pro board, although I did in the end stick an audigy 2 in as I personally have always preferred creative for sound.
 
Soldato
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8 Jun 2003
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NBO
Realtek ALC850 8-channel CODEC: Should be good if not better! Try both and see which you prefer, i.e. sound quality, CPU usage, etc. I'm still using my Creative Audigy but next upgrade might consider going onboard because mobo I want has equivalent of Audigy 2 :eek:
 
Suspended
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17 Mar 2006
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9,055
I have a choice of Realtek 882 onboard or SB Live (the original with digital IO bracket)

SB Live has EAX problems in COD2, and with KX drivers sounds funny in Oblivion. Might stick to onboard next time open the PC up.
 
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