Thread: Onboard vs Dedicated Audio

Hopefully you guys can help settle a discussion between two friends of mine. Both have massive ego's and neither wants to be wrong so I refused to get involved because their discussions usually turn into heated arguments.

One of them is insisting that onboard audio chips on todays current motherboards are just as good as any dedicated audio card in terms of playback quality. He insists there is no reason at all for anyone to get an dedicated audio card unless they have a recording studio and are in need of the fancy input connectors found on the drive-bay panel included with a few models.

The other friend says that dedicated audio is far better then any onboard chip. He insists playback quality of mp3's is superior, 3D positioning in movies and games is more accurate and that dedicated cards have support for features like EAX and Dolby Digital which onboard cards don't.

Thus the numbers started flying! This, dB that, frequency response something or another. I am neither a sound engineer or an audiophile.

Who is right?

(This does have relevance to me as i'm looking at the Logitech Z5500's and the new X-FI Titanium PCI-E card but don't want to waste money. Currently I have whatever onboard audio is on an Asus P5K and Logitech X530's.)

I, too, have Logitech x-530's and I love them with my audigy 2 zs sound card. Honestly, I do like my soundcard's options to change all sorts of settings on my setup to get different sounds. I would probably go for a card if I were to build a new rig now. However, I don't think I would go for anything super expensive.

I haven't really heard bad things about onboard audio. I have never used mine to compare the difference, but I do not think that my onboard audio has the ability to change all the settings like my card does.

Generally speaking: most dedicated soundcards will almost always perform better (both CPU wise and sound quality wise) because there is more hardware devoted for the task at hand (I.E.: producing sound). Comparably: a dedicated sound card has many chips and transistors to create sound, whereas many of the integrated on-board solutions have only 1 chip, few transistors, and often rely on software emulation to produce sound. This causes CPU load and can also degrade the sound experience (and even cause the sound to "stutter”).

But on the other hand I don't use a sound cards and I only have used onboard sound for the last 10 years it’s good enough for me, and also they have improved onboard sound over the years.

Hope this helps you out