Sound card vs. Onboard

matpohmatpoh Iowa, USA
edited November 2003 in Hardware
I have an machine I am putting together mostly with old spare parts for an extra LAN gaming machine. The motherboard I am using is an ASRock K7VM4. It has 5.1 AC'97 onboard audio. I also have some extra pci soundblaster sound cards. The machine really wont be used for any audio apps or much else other than gaming.

Considering I would likely get better quality with onboard vs. use less resources using pci sound card, which is the better choice?

Comments

  • rapturerapture
    edited November 2003
    Depends on the soundcard you have.. Personally I prefer a board that doesnt have any onboard hardware. Though things like sound and RAID I can live with..
  • matpohmatpoh Iowa, USA
    edited November 2003
    I cant remember exactly what it is. But its been around for a while. Maybe even 16bit or sblive.

    I agree with the onboard stuff, but I will likely never use this machine for myself for gaming so no big deal.
  • GnomeWizarddGnomeWizardd Member 4 Life Akron, PA Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    go ahead with the sound onboard cause it will free up a pci slot and prolly wont sound any worse than those old cards. Most likely it might sound better
  • karatekidkaratekid Ogdensburg, NY
    edited November 2003
    If it is a SB Live then I would put that in since I feel that has better sound quality than AC 97. If it is anything older though than just stick with the onboard.
  • NYCDrewNYCDrew NYC(duh)
    edited November 2003
    If the onboard doesn't slow your frame rates, stick with it, less chance of a driver conflict.
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