In many cases these days sound is pumped out via HDMI or SPDIF to a receiver/HDTV. Onboard audio is only really relevant to analogue systems as far as I can tell. I currently use the onboard solution on my Maximus V Formula feeding optical to Logitech Z-960s, with the bundled ASUS 'ThunderFX' headphone amp (which is fair to middling) for cans. Sounded better than the Creative, but the same bloated **** drivers. I gave away dedicated processors after the last build, where I retired an Auzen X-Fi Prelude and shifted my Edifier S-550Ds to the lounge. Still in service at my Mum's place, actually. I was only pumping to Logitech Z-5500s, but I was a bit younger and liked the 'doof', so they were great. Quickly ditched it, picked up an original PCI Xonar for a bit and truly enjoyed it. I 'upgraded' to the newer X-Fi Platinum at the time, and what a waste that was. Then I got proper jobs, and treated myself to digital outputs on speaker sets. A couple of Audigy's did me until the newer CMedia codecs came into their element, when I picked up a BlueGears B-inspire or something. I loved that card and it's swanky breakout box. Started with a Live! 5.1 I think, then had a Hercules GameTheater for donkey's years. After using that until my Gigabyte board gave out, I switched to dedicated audio processors for a long time. That was a nice step up from the usual crummy onboard audio. I've had far more motherboards than I could possibly remember, but I do remember the 'gamechanger' being nForce 2 on the Socket A. Here are my subjective scores for the last few audio solutions I've had based solely on sound quality:Īh this is a good topic, I'll try not to ramble too much! Are you using onboard? Which board and which codec? Or are you using a sound card? What speakers are you using? What do you think? So now that I have a new board with an ALC892 (a very ubiquitous codec particularly with desktop motherboards) on it, I've been wanting to revisit this topic, and to know what you guys are using out there. Bottomline, I found that the ALC889 lets me tuck the X-Fi away and live off onboard audio quite happily. Of course, the board maker's implementation ultimately determines how the audio codec will sound, but in this case, it looks like the A785GM-E65 puts the ALC889 to good use. The ALC889 was audibly better than the 92HD206 assuming it wasn't just a 'placebo' effect: The ALC889 had very respectable specs especially in the SNR dept. I had that ECS board from June 2008 to June 2010 and was succeeded by an MSI A785GM-E65 with a Realtek ALC889. Quite frankly, the IDT audio is what spurred me to get a sound card because it just sounded too. I have a Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium PCIe lying around here which I bought four years ago, and which I've used mostly during the time when I still owned an ECS A780GM-A, which had an IDT 92HD206. As the old Inifiniti slogan used to say, "Own One and You'll Understand."
Now I know many people believe a proper sound card such as those from HT Omega, Creative (ok, no talk about their drivers now) or M-Audio can blow any onboard solution clear out of the water, but most folks are also perfectly happy with their onboard audio, considering, perhaps, they haven't tried listening to a proper sound card connected to some proper speakers. It's fine for most things although it's audibly not as good as the best I've laid my ears on.
I've been using my MSI 990FXA-GD65 board for a few months now, which came equipped with a Realtek ALC892 audio codec.