hi built a new system (well will have when my mobo is RMA due it being DOA!) i have got the ASUS P6T V2 motherboard and im wondering if the onboard sound will be better than my existing Xfi Elite Pro that ive had for about 4 years? thanks
If its a 4 year old card, then I would say more then likley the on board is better. On board sound isnt top of the line but its a hell of alot better then what it was 4 years ago. If you a die hard audiophile you should get a card but surround sound on a mobo is pretty descent these days.
Even a 4 year old sound PCI card will run circles around a onboard audio. I have a 5 year old generic 10.00 dollar PCI soundcard that gives me better sound than the onboard sound of the newer motherboards. Also on a different note, the PCI soundcard will take some of the load off your cpu. But you need to have the latest drivers and hopefully they work with the OS. A top of the line older soundcard will usually have good drivers available. And having decent speakers will definitely let you experience the difference.
I highly disagree. Assuming it is still functional, a 4 year old pro-grade sound card will be substantially better than onboard audio. I will just say though, the DOA P6T could potentially be the tip of the iceberg.
ok thanks looking like i'll stick with Xfi for the time being then. sammorris what do you mean that the DOA P6T could potentially be the tip of the iceberg?
I still havent seen anything to back this up with. Mind providing some actual references. AD is the one and only play i continue to see ASUS put down on a regular basis.
A lot of this comes from personal experience (and those of others - there's a lot of it), but there's plenty of evidence out there - forum posts, newegg reviews, and so on. Can sometimes be tricky to find since most people only comment on what products are like when new, not when they get older, and it's typically from 6 to 21 months in that an Asus product will fail.
Asus has terrible quality these days...I thought it was just their mainboards, video cards, and other PC components, but my current experiences show that their build quality is terrible across the board. They can't even make a reliable monitor when they buy quality LCDs from other suppliers...the extremely simple signal processing boards are crummy, and the cases are flimsy. Considering that even Insignia (best buy house brand) is able to get these things right, I would rather buy from a brand I have never heard of than from Asus. BTW...most PCI sound cards will sound better than onboard audio, and will also not waist so much performance while in operation.
I have a good friend in Australia that loves his EEE PC...but he treats it more like a desktop than anything, he never even unplugs it from the power, and has a USB mouse and keyboard...so it is hard to say how durable it is. So far he has about 6 months on it with no issues other than windows xp problems...that's much better luck than I have had with Asus products...but it might just be luck.
6 months is usually where the trouble starts. it varies from 5 to 20 months depending on how lucky you are.
Haha a Soundblaster X-Fi Elite Pro will absolutely demolish even the very best on-board. I'm using a lowly X-Fi Xtreme Music and I will never turn back. Hell, even my friend's 3 year old Audigy SE slams the onboard audio on his brand new Gigabyte 785G board. You just can't beat a decent sound card. Audio quality is not something that changes quite like graphics power. Good sound is good sound and bad sound is bad sound. Onboard sound on even new boards is terrible.
Onboard sound quality is mediocre. Onboard sound polyphony in games is pathetic. More than a few bad guys on screen and randomly sounds won't play - often this isn't noticeable but in an FPS when your own gun makes no noise, it's very offputting. Be very careful though as the only company that seems to produce reliable end-user sound cards is Creative, who are in the top 5 most corrupt companies in the world for consumer exploitation. The Audigy SE is banned in Vista and Win7, as far as Creative are concerned you're not allowed to use it with those OSes. As for the X-Fi it's a tricky one. Stay away from windows update and you might get away with it.
Actually I am using modded X-Fi drivers and my friend is for his Audigy SE as well(Also Win 7). Ever heard of Daniel K?? He posts the modded drivers right on the Creative forums even and they haven't done much about it. He even threw ALchemy and the X-Fi Crystalizer in for the SE and it works fine. For the record Creative themselves have released Win 7 compatibility drivers for the Audigy SE. But both the Audigy SE drivers for Vista and 7 are crippled. They only provide a basic control panel. No EQ, CMSS-3D, surround volume controls, or anything that actually makes the cards useful. As far as Windows update I have always used it. Aren't the updates mostly security patches and the like? I have never had a reason not to use it. Heck, been letting Windows auto update since XP SP2 and never had a single issue.
Daniel K drivers only work with hardware sound cards (X-Fi upwards), they do not support Audigy cards. It's well publicised that the compatibility drivers for the Audigy SE disable the card entirely, it's a ploy to make you buy an X-Fi card, hence why two identical cards are marketed as separate products (Audigy SE and X-Fi Extreme Audio) - same card, same PCB, one's £17 the other is £42 - the extra £25 is the license to be able to use the card in Vista or Windows 7.
That is not true. I myself have seen an Audigy SE in Windows 7 with full features on Daniel K drivers. He has made several versions for several different series of cards. And the Crystalizer is pure software BTW. These are it right here and THEY DO WORK. Including CMSS-3D and the Crystalizer http://forums.creative.com/t5/Sound...-2-0-07-31-2009-AudigySE-Value-LS/td-p/533291 Also note it supports the Xtreme Audio as well. Also untrue. My friend with the Audigy used the compatibility driver first and it DID NOT disable his card. It works and gives sound but only has a basic control panel. It just has none of the features present on the drivers CD which is Win XP only. He uninstalled and cleaned it out with Driver Sweeper and used the above link. His card works fine with all the features originally included in the driver CD. And yes it is a retail Audigy SE, not Xtreme Audio. The marketing ploy is not disabling the hardware. The hardware DOES WORK on Windows Vista and 7 using Creative drivers. The problem is that they disable almost all of the useful software features and are basically making you buy a new card for the right to use a slightly modified driver. In all reality, the Daniel K drivers are probably 99% of what Creative might have released. The only difference is that Creative did not release them.
This is a recent development - Daniel K's patch notes specifically stated there were no third party drivers for the basic sound cards such as the Audigy SE. I am amazed that forum thread hasn't been deleted yet, creative tried to sue every website that hosted Daniel K's drivers. The compatibility patch does not disable the Audigy SE entirely, but it might as well, it removes access to the sound control panel, speaker settings and so on, and of course disables all the EAX and so on features. It also disables all but the front speaker output.
