Integrated sound cards VS Dedicated sound cards - General

So this is an often debated topic, with mixed opinions. Do integrated audio codecs equal the performance of cheap or even high-end dedicated sound cards? Do dedicated SPU's blow onboard away in almost any instance?

Dedicated sound cards have more advanced DSPs. ASUS and Creative cards support Dolby Headphone and CMSS-3D respectively. This gives them a great edge for gamers.

No contest. Every time I've used an on-board card (usually the infamous 'AC-97' or intel High def audio) I could hear excessive processing noise, it is particularly noticeable when moving or resizing things on screen (I guess this is due to a combination of unshielded electronics and proximity to power/data going to the GPU). Proper cards don't have this problem in my experience.

I have a internal sound card and I have no problems at all. My friend says he can hear static on his, but I never hear any except when I'm about to receive a text and radio signals go near my headphones.

integrated sound cards are more suitable for laptops but for desktop computer, if you have the money, you can buy a sound expansion pack as long as your motherboard can support it. I go for dedicated sound card if I have the chance

My Realtek Audio HD is pretty good at sound. Supports 5.1 etc. But my friend who has some crappier integrated Realtek Audio, his microphone gets static, sound quality is slightly worse but not like you would notice it. Unless you work at an audio industry / with audio, a sound card won't make much difference. Of course, if you blow a huge load of money at good headphones, you should get a good one instead of integrated.

I've got an integrated VIA sound card and a dedicated Creative XFi Titanium sound card. Under Windows I get crappy output most of the time on the VIA sound card (sometimes it's even delayed, I have the video and two seconds later the sound, main reason I bought a dedicated sound card actually), and with the XFi I've got a clean output along with Creative's features like EAX and CMSS-3D. Under Linux, I have a good sound quality with both cards, the only difference being that the XFi is louder.

I had a really fucking old SoundBlaster Audigy (like from like 2000 or something :v:) until it finally died on me about a year or so ago. Been using on-board sound since then. Due to the age difference between the card and the rest of the computer (built the computer in 2009 I think), I can't hear a difference. Apparently on-board sound cards are at or better than the level dedicated sound cards were 12 years ago. Who would have guessed, right? :v:

I use a creative x-fi dedicated Sound Card, the sound is much better than the sound coming from the old realtek on-board AND I get Creative ASIO, which allows for latency free recording/listening while recording music.

yeah IMO unless you're doing audio production there's no need to use dedicated, onboard soundcards are good enough nowadays

Every on-board sound system i've used thus far has been rather shit. Dedicated cards are fairly cheap, provide excellent quality and reduce load on the CPU. That having been said, a good sound card means fuck all if you've got shit speakers/headphones.

[QUOTE=Sgt Doom;36326719]Every on-board sound system i've used thus far has been rather shit. Dedicated cards are fairly cheap, provide excellent quality and reduce load on the CPU. That having been said, a good sound card means fuck all if you've got shit speakers/headphones.[/QUOTE] I've found that even a cheap 24$ sound card makes even 20$ sony headphones sound [b]really good[/b]

I switched from an integrated to a real soundcard about one year ago, and the difference in quality was clear as day.

[QUOTE=Kenneth;36323074]No contest. Every time I've used an on-board card (usually the infamous 'AC-97' or intel High def audio) I could hear excessive processing noise, it is particularly noticeable when moving or resizing things on screen (I guess this is due to a combination of unshielded electronics and proximity to power/data going to the GPU). Proper cards don't have this problem in my experience.[/QUOTE] I remember that the AC 97 did sound pretty crap, but newer integrated soundcards sound just fine to me. There is the noise problem that you mentioned, but it's only noticeable when you have speakers turned up way high and there's no sounds playing.

if you want a dedicated soundcard just get an external DAC instead

[QUOTE=pebkac;36327499]I remember that the AC 97 did sound pretty crap, but newer integrated soundcards sound just fine to me. There is the noise problem that you mentioned, but it's only noticeable when you have speakers turned up way high and there's no sounds playing.[/QUOTE] Fuck AC 97 and whoever invented it. I had one in my old HP and it made upgrading to vista/win7 fucking impossible. They like didn't make 64 bit drivers for vista and win7 until way after windows 7 was released.

I've noticed that the bass on a dedicated sound card is handled way better, I have really muddy bass on a onboard sound card but on a dedicated sound card it's more of a punch, "activating" at the right time.

[QUOTE=bluesky;36328814]Fuck AC 97 and whoever invented it. I had one in my old HP and it made upgrading to vista/win7 fucking impossible. They like didn't make 64 bit drivers for vista and win7 until way after windows 7 was released.[/QUOTE] How did it make it impossible? Did Vista/7 not allow you to upgrade because there were no AC97 drivers? That's kind of strange considering all of my Windows 7 upgrades that I've done have never had sound until I went onto Realtek's site and downloaded the driver. Plus, some keyboards have USB headphone out jacks, which I use, and it sounds good enough for me.

Dedicated always beats onboard, but I use an external DAC as it is. Too much processing noise down there on the board.

Yeah sound cards are now an essential in my book. Went from the alc889 on my P8P67 Deluxe to a $30 asus xonar_DG and it definitely sounds a lot better, more detail and clarity, smoother bass, overall a 30% quality increase I'd say.

My integrated sound on my Z77X-UD5H sounds awful even compared to Creative's old Audigy SE. But I've used lots of computers where the integrated sounded fine. For me personally a dedicated card is superior.

Bought the Asus Xonar DS sound card for $50. Never going back to Realtek onboard audio. The sound is better in every way. Everything is so clear. If you're using onboard and you're looking for better sound, buy a sound card. Even the cheap ones are way better than onboard.

I need to get a dedicated sound card... The integrated card on my board gets static-y when the CPU is under heavy load. It makes gaming an audiovisual pain.

I figured audio is one of the things I take advantage of for hours a day so I splurged a little and got a Creative X-fi Titanium HD and a Fiio E9 amplifier for my Sennheiser HD280's, dunno if a $30 asus card would have done the same thing, but it sounds killer and clearly better then the Realtek ALC889A on my GA-EP45-UD3P mobo.

Out of curiosity, how many people here are audiophiles? Put another way, how many of you are disgusted when forced to use a non-FLAC alternative and downright refuse to listen to anything less than 320kbps? And how many of you have high-quality and expensive Sennheisers? :v: Myself, I use old Yamaha speakers from 2000. Sound quality isn't that big a concern to me. :v:

[QUOTE=Gmod4ever;36350259]Out of curiosity, how many people here are audiophiles? Put another way, how many of you are disgusted when forced to use a non-FLAC alternative and downright refuse to listen to anything less than 320kbps? And how many of you have high-quality and expensive Sennheisers?[/QUOTE] Yo. [editline]15th June 2012[/editline] My Onkyo 2.1 is my pride and glory

Had an EVGA 780i with integrated audio. Compared that to the output of a Creative X-Fi Titanium using Sony MDR-V6 (studio monitor headphones) and heard [i]no difference[/i] in sound quality when sampling music encoded with FLAC. I flipped between the two devices dozens of times over several tracks. [i]Nothing was different between the two.[/i] One thing I half-heartedly miss about the Creative X-Fi Titanium is dat crystallizer. It does make music punchier, but its implementation also boosts the overall volume a bit, making comparisons between with and without a little tricky - louder can be mistaken for "better sound", so be careful when subjectively objectifying this stuff. This [i]is[/i] distortion, though, so audio purists have no need for this unless they have lots of low bitrate lossy-encoded music. In which case, using just-in-time re-rendering of music for the crystallization effect may make more sense that installing an overpriced PCIe slot cover. You're better off sinking your money into a good receiver that has digital optical input. That way, you can completely eliminate your computer's DACs from the equation. I will note, however, that some integrated audio setups tend to skimp on quality for secondary channels. If you have more than two speakers (and a sub), you may want to use digital optical out or invest in a dedicated sound card. How to tell? Hook up all pairs of speakers, one pair at a time, to your first output - compare to second output, etc. In the end, I decided that Creative's buggy drivers weren't worth the hassle of something that just distorts my sound (the crystallizer). Seriously, took awhile to figure out that Creative's drivers were causing my computer to crash/hang when going into standby. Standby is damned useful.

I use onboard. One less part to buy, one less part to fail.

[QUOTE=Gmod4ever;36350259]Out of curiosity, how many people here are audiophiles? Put another way, how many of you are disgusted when forced to use a non-FLAC alternative and downright refuse to listen to anything less than 320kbps? And how many of you have high-quality and expensive Sennheisers? :v: Myself, I use old Yamaha speakers from 2000. Sound quality isn't that big a concern to me. :v:[/QUOTE] basically you should have just asked: "how many people are dumb as butt?"

[QUOTE=Lazor;36358185]basically you should have just asked: "how many people are dumb as butt?"[/QUOTE] That's not very nice What problem do you have with people who like to get the most out of their music?