Old sound cards better than integrate???

[Balfrat]

I have a question, do you think this 2 old sound cards are better than the average integrate sound card on most motherboard? The two cards are Creative Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 and Yamaha YMF724F-V (this is the chip on the card, I didn't find name of the card). I ask this because I really don't know much about sound cards.

[cadaveca]

Depends on the board, but most current motherboards have pretty good audio codecs, especially if you run Vista...old cards are given new life in Vista...but those cards are pretty old IMHO, and will be beaten by any onboard from the last 12 months...


Easy way to check...does the card have a VIsta driver? No? Waste of time then...

[TopDogZero]

Interesting, never really gave much thought about my old sound card my MB has on board audio. My old Audigy 1 card has a Vista driver, do you think it might be better than my on board (ADI® AD1988B 8-channel High Definition Audio CODEC). I'm not a audiophile so I'm pretty happy with the ADI but if the Audigy is better I'll give a a go.

[cadaveca]

ADI has some good sound, depending on motherboard, so I'm hardpressed to suggest audigy over it.

You might get better EAX effects with the audigy, but I'm not even sure that audigy is suc ha great card, as X-Fi has been out for how many years now? Audigy's are OLD...I got one in a box under my stairs too...

[TopDogZero]

Figured as much and don’t really care about EAX. And your right ADI sounds pretty good for on board, just wished they would provide drivers directly from there web site instead of MB manufacture.

[mo' power]

Personally, I prefer my audigy 2ZS over onboard. It seems that every time I use onboard, I find the sound kind of "tinny". I'm using it with logitech X540 5.1 speakers.

[TopDogZero]

Audigy 2ZS was a way better card that the original Audgy I have, if I had one laying around I use it over the onboard too.

[Phobia]

Thread revival:
Would my supremefx2 from my asus p5e be better than onboard of say an Asus p5kpl-cm board? NCIX.com - Buy ASUS P5KPL-CM mATX Intel G31 LGA775 1PCI-16 1PCI-E1 2PCI SATA2 Video Sound GBLAN Motherboard - P5KPL-CM In Canada.

[mo' power]

I'm not familiar with that card, but I was using the onboard sound on that exact board a few months ago. I found that my audigy had better sound than the onboard. My gf thought so too. I only had it installed for less than 2 weeks due to the fact that my video card couldn't breathe.The sound card was blocking airflow to the card causing it to overheat causing all sorts of artifacting and crashing. Not to mention sizzling one of my fingers. Man did it get hot!!!!

[Realityshift]

I found my audigy 2 value with the new vista drivers adds alot of punch to my X530s compared to the onboard I was using. There are a ton of soft mods for these cards to bring them up to X-Fis but I cant find any working ones anymore, their all from 2005 =(