I had a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtrememusic until yesterday when it broke. Running with my onboard AzaliaIntel High Definition Audio and it sound almost better than the Xtrememusic did ^^
Honestly, unless you got killer speakers (and I mean home theater ones).. from a quality perspective, it won't matter much.. it'd be hard to hear the difference in terms of music and movies. Gaming though, I have no clue.. I know XFi does improve frame rates.. but I don't know by how many percent..
I mean.. if you got a quad/dual core system.. surely 15% of cpu won't affect the performance THAT much right? what's 15% cpu on 1 core out of 4 or 2?
ya you do only need a soundcard for music editing or even film and for sure for gaming. Sound blaster xfi or even audigy 2 series is still awesome. Creative FTW!
U need sound card only if u play games in vista and minimum is X-FI XtremeGamer which ive got :) (not for vista im using XP but i like to hear every sound in game bad luck if u have on board sound and u think its playing fine in games becouse onboard saound cards cant play every sound menat to be heared :P
I do. I have an audigy 2 but i also have a 7.1 surround realtek with my Gigabyte mobo. The reason why "gamers" and serious music users should use PCI cards are 1: Mobo Devolpers admit that even if their baked mobo sound says HD it is truely not. (Pc gamer Mag ref) And also it affects framerates. Features such as CREATIVE EAX are not avalible in onboard sound
I couple of things, Highdef sound is just a gimmick. On board sound is ok for general use but if u fancy a bit of music creation don't even go for a card like the xfire get a reasonably cheap card from a pro manufacture like M-Audio cos most consumer cards "colour" the sound. What I mean is they boost frequencies especially bass of which isn't a good thing cos if u made a "bangin" tune with added bass then take it to a friends house u may notice the oppersit effect.
Those of us who use computers as the centerpiece of our home recording studios however, need something a little better. Its not uncommon for us to pay hundreds of dollars for a sound card. Its not just what inputs are avaliable, but the quality of the inputs. If you are using pc speakers, you can't notice the difference. However when you use high quality studio monitors which enhance all of the frequencies, the difference is very much noticable.
yeah that's true. but it also depends how serious you are, and also what you're recording specifically. i have something similar to the line6 toneport, so i just plug in my guitar and record over USB. there's a bit of lag so i dont use it as an amplifier of some sort, but for recording purposes its fine
the onboard video card wasn't good enough bcuz it didn't have enough video memory for me and it was slowing down my whole system so i installed a PCI video card which did the trick.
i would say deff gout a PCI sound card if you are doing synthed music or playing a lot of MIDI files my old PCI sound card that dont work iv vista because its discontinued only thing it was better on was sythed music like midi files because it was done via the hardwarte not the software like on my onboard but for every day sound my onboard is just as good
i actually think the onboard sound is just fine. i have 5.1 surround sound on my pc, and i use it for games, and it works just fine. i haven't noticed any performance lag in doing so either. i guess sound cards are really only necessary for doing professional audio recording.
the only add-in cards i have are graphics, and wireless networking because at the moment motherboards, or at least mainstream ones dont have built-in wifi
My audio plays choppy / laggy. What do you think the problem is? My sound card is built into the motherboard by the way
smokemafiaclick 8 months ago
I had a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtrememusic until yesterday when it broke. Running with my onboard AzaliaIntel High Definition Audio and it sound almost better than the Xtrememusic did ^^
blajsad 1 year ago
@blajsad
Lol you used xtrememusic?
SgtThom 9 months ago
i need both to run but for some reason i cant run my on board
djduckyduck 2 years ago
Honestly, unless you got killer speakers (and I mean home theater ones).. from a quality perspective, it won't matter much.. it'd be hard to hear the difference in terms of music and movies. Gaming though, I have no clue.. I know XFi does improve frame rates.. but I don't know by how many percent..
I mean.. if you got a quad/dual core system.. surely 15% of cpu won't affect the performance THAT much right? what's 15% cpu on 1 core out of 4 or 2?
syruppie 4 years ago
XFI if your into gaming, processes sounds w/o using the your main cpu (has it's own cpu on the board) resulting in better fps.
Blitzkrieg1981 4 years ago
i dont know if i like onboard though..even for moives etc. It through the CPU which makes me a little wiery..
Kaleb34 4 years ago
ya you do only need a soundcard for music editing or even film and for sure for gaming. Sound blaster xfi or even audigy 2 series is still awesome. Creative FTW!
Kaleb34 4 years ago
U need sound card only if u play games in vista and minimum is X-FI XtremeGamer which ive got :) (not for vista im using XP but i like to hear every sound in game bad luck if u have on board sound and u think its playing fine in games becouse onboard saound cards cant play every sound menat to be heared :P
Raider0001 4 years ago
I do. I have an audigy 2 but i also have a 7.1 surround realtek with my Gigabyte mobo. The reason why "gamers" and serious music users should use PCI cards are 1: Mobo Devolpers admit that even if their baked mobo sound says HD it is truely not. (Pc gamer Mag ref) And also it affects framerates. Features such as CREATIVE EAX are not avalible in onboard sound
Kaleb34 4 years ago
I couple of things, Highdef sound is just a gimmick. On board sound is ok for general use but if u fancy a bit of music creation don't even go for a card like the xfire get a reasonably cheap card from a pro manufacture like M-Audio cos most consumer cards "colour" the sound. What I mean is they boost frequencies especially bass of which isn't a good thing cos if u made a "bangin" tune with added bass then take it to a friends house u may notice the oppersit effect.
ssssroryssss2 4 years ago
I just bought a new computer w/(core2duoProcessor)love the sound it came with.
martyjerry 4 years ago
Those of us who use computers as the centerpiece of our home recording studios however, need something a little better. Its not uncommon for us to pay hundreds of dollars for a sound card. Its not just what inputs are avaliable, but the quality of the inputs. If you are using pc speakers, you can't notice the difference. However when you use high quality studio monitors which enhance all of the frequencies, the difference is very much noticable.
Paragon0fVirtue 4 years ago
yeah that's true. but it also depends how serious you are, and also what you're recording specifically. i have something similar to the line6 toneport, so i just plug in my guitar and record over USB. there's a bit of lag so i dont use it as an amplifier of some sort, but for recording purposes its fine
Nikiaf 4 years ago
the onboard video card wasn't good enough bcuz it didn't have enough video memory for me and it was slowing down my whole system so i installed a PCI video card which did the trick.
royalg2 4 years ago
i would say deff gout a PCI sound card if you are doing synthed music or playing a lot of MIDI files my old PCI sound card that dont work iv vista because its discontinued only thing it was better on was sythed music like midi files because it was done via the hardwarte not the software like on my onboard but for every day sound my onboard is just as good
arranmc182 4 years ago
i actually think the onboard sound is just fine. i have 5.1 surround sound on my pc, and i use it for games, and it works just fine. i haven't noticed any performance lag in doing so either. i guess sound cards are really only necessary for doing professional audio recording.
Nikiaf 4 years ago
the only add-in cards i have are graphics, and wireless networking because at the moment motherboards, or at least mainstream ones dont have built-in wifi
Nikiaf 4 years ago