sheroo
New member
Any of the current crop of H61,H67 or Z68 boards with an i3,i5 or i7 chip with HDMI support it.
Do I really need a sound card?
- Thread starter simsimma4
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Any of the current crop of H61,H67 or Z68 boards with an i3,i5 or i7 chip with HDMI support it.
what makes you say that...
Ya93sin
New member
Onboard sound is meant to be better nowadays, but with my mobo (ASUS P8Z68V-PRO), the onboard sound was pretty sh*tty, my keyboard has an inbuilt sound card and it sounded a lot better. Then a friend gave me a sound card for free (Creative Soundblaster 5.1, works via USB, has optical out and a lot of other connections), and that's worth about £50 so I suppose it's midrange, but the difference between onboard and the soundcard- and I've tried this, especially using FLAC audio, is huge.
In answer to your question, it depends first on whether the quality of your onboard sound is good enough, then it depends on how much you care about the sound. You'd want the sound signal from the PC to be as clean as possible before it gets to the amp.
And is your profile name related to the Beenie Man song Sim Simma lol?
In answer to your question, it depends first on whether the quality of your onboard sound is good enough, then it depends on how much you care about the sound. You'd want the sound signal from the PC to be as clean as possible before it gets to the amp.
And is your profile name related to the Beenie Man song Sim Simma lol?
sheroo
New member
He'll be going from the on board HDMI straight to an external av receiver - its all digital end to end. So in his case he doesn't need a soundcard. If he were to plug an amp or headphones straight into his PC then a dedicated sound card would give him better reproduction, but his av receiver will be decoding the digital signal, not his motherboard.
Thanks for your advice.
And yes!! it is from the Beenie man song
If you are outputting in digital the real sonic difference occurs due to the quality of D/A converters and also (most importantly) the quality of the ladders/clocks that the hardware uses (they keep the digital stream in check/sync).
The quality of MB based SPDIF outputs compared to a decent soundcard will be marginal to most ears and significant to some (who work in the music industry mostly). Saying that iPODS can be used in a broadcast environment is nonsense - that difference is a bit more than marginal....it is massive.
I Use a RME Raydat sound card which costs about £500, why ? - because I use my rig for music production and when you plug your pc into a desk that cost about £12k you CAN hear the difference.
Carl
The quality of MB based SPDIF outputs compared to a decent soundcard will be marginal to most ears and significant to some (who work in the music industry mostly). Saying that iPODS can be used in a broadcast environment is nonsense - that difference is a bit more than marginal....it is massive.
I Use a RME Raydat sound card which costs about £500, why ? - because I use my rig for music production and when you plug your pc into a desk that cost about £12k you CAN hear the difference.
Carl
Murderous Scorpion
New member
The gear that your planning on plugging into the sound card also matters. As if you have cheap audio gear then you might notice. Verse if you have audio gear that isn't cheap where you would notice the difference.
