Integrated goodies... or Indipendent ones?

[gsoul2soul]

Well... this is Q asked by my fren!!!

He was on a tight budget, so he bought an intel mobo... which has 5.1 channel sound

now he has creative "LIVE" 4.1 sound card... and since this new motherboard has only 3 PCI slot (of which one has been taken up by.. huge HEAT SINK of his AGP slot)... i told him to use, the onboard sound card !!!

now... do you think, this onboard sound card will be as good as the GOOD OL creative?

help....

[john_the_ultimate]

Newer mobos nowdays have good onboard audio solution. Also using a seperate soundcard does takes some load off the CPU (audio processing).
See, if he has a 5.1 speaker system then he should use the onboard audio as the 4.1 soundcard won't support his speaker system. Otherwise if he has a 2.1 or 4.1 speaker then better use the soundcard. By the way, which mobo (model no.) does he has?

[gsoul2soul]

Intel 865GSA ... with Realtec 5.1 (i guess)

He has Creative Inspire 4.1 Speakers... which is sounding quite okay with the onboard soundcard!!!

But then... i was wondering (since EAX is onyl Creative thing) maybe Some games will not be as good on this "Realtec Audio"

[john_the_ultimate]

Better use the creative soundcard.

[gsoul2soul]

so creative is better?

but the onboard soundcard has 5.1 capabilites... them come to think, i only have a 4.1 speakers !!!

hmmm... maybe i will use the creative one !!!