Motherboard Audio Chipsets

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lauren the Ravishing
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Lauren the Ravishing

Is there a page somewhere that compares the different integrated audio
chipsets that many motherboards are now including?

I'm about to build a new PC with a microATX motherboard. Audio quality
is an important factor but I have a limited number of PCI slots so I'm
looking for something on-board.

How do these rate?

ADI AD1980
C-Media CMI9739A
Realtek ALC655
AC97 Codec

Are there ones that I should be looking for?

Thank you for your time,
~Lauren
 
Is there a page somewhere that compares the different integrated audio
chipsets that many motherboards are now including?

I'm about to build a new PC with a microATX motherboard. Audio quality
is an important factor but I have a limited number of PCI slots so I'm
looking for something on-board.

How do these rate?

ADI AD1980
C-Media CMI9739A
Realtek ALC655
AC97 Codec

Are there ones that I should be looking for?

Thank you for your time,
~Lauren
Click to expand...

I don't know about the other's so much but C-Media is pretty decent. I
have that on my Asus mb and used it for a while and had no issues and
the sound quality was ok. AC97 is just a standard and not a sound
chipset although some mb's list their mb as having AC97 for sound.
C-Media is also AC97. I think Realtek is supposed to be ok. My Abit
mb has Realtek ALC650 but I have never tried it out. The only onboard
sound solution that can match an add-on card like an Audigy2 is the
Soundstorm that came on mb's with the Nforce2 chipset. But I think all
onboard sound these days is fairly decent for music, mp3's, internet
radio etc. It's when you get into 3D audio in games that they may fall
a bit short. I prefer to use add-on cards myself and have Audigy2 on
one PC and Santa Cruz on the other. It all depends on what your PC
usage is. I'm a gamer and is why I use add-on cards.
 
I don't know about the other's so much but C-Media is pretty decent. I
have that on my Asus mb and used it for a while and had no issues and
the sound quality was ok. AC97 is just a standard and not a sound
chipset although some mb's list their mb as having AC97 for sound.
C-Media is also AC97. I think Realtek is supposed to be ok. My Abit
mb has Realtek ALC650 but I have never tried it out.
Click to expand...


Just to complicate things further, the chip is only one relatively
small part of the equation. I've got two systems, both with AC97
sound using C-Media CODECs. The first is an ASRock K7S41GX using a
CMI9739 chip. The second is a Chaintech 7NJL6 using a CMI7961A. The
difference in specs between these two chips is quite small, but the
difference in sound quality is very noticeable. The Chaintech board
has a much cleaner sound, sufficiently better that it's pretty obvious
with my only average-quality computer speakers.

Unfortunately audio is one of those tricky analog things where
subtleties in design can affect performance much more than
specifications.
The only onboard
sound solution that can match an add-on card like an Audigy2 is the
Soundstorm that came on mb's with the Nforce2 chipset.
Click to expand...

Virtually none of the nForce2 chipsets use the Soundstorm audio. My
above-mentioned Chaintech board certainly does not. Most of the
nForce1 boards used Soundstorm, but it was mostly dropped for the
nForce2.
But I think all
onboard sound these days is fairly decent for music, mp3's, internet
radio etc. It's when you get into 3D audio in games that they may fall
a bit short. I prefer to use add-on cards myself and have Audigy2 on
one PC and Santa Cruz on the other. It all depends on what your PC
usage is. I'm a gamer and is why I use add-on cards.
Click to expand...

I find the integrated audio on my Chaintech board to be quite
sufficient for light-use, but I purchased a PCI sound card for the
ASRock board.
 
Soundstorm was just too expensive to implement on cheap boards.

My Nforce2 board has Soundstorm... the performance is 'adequate'.

It depends on what your expectations are... if the PC is to be a used
in a studio or hi-fi environment, you're going to want a professional
card.

If it's just to pipe occasional MP3 music, onboard is fine.

T.
 
Virtually none of the nForce2 chipsets use the Soundstorm audio. My
above-mentioned Chaintech board certainly does not. Most of the
nForce1 boards used Soundstorm, but it was mostly dropped for the
nForce2.
Click to expand...

Here's a list showing all the motherboards that use Soundstorm. If I
was going for onboard sound and had AMD I would buy one of those but
of course not if I wanted an Nforce4 mb as none of those have it.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/motherboards.html

NVIDIA SoundStorm

For the most powerful integrated audio solution available today, look
for NVIDIA nForce(TM) and NVIDIA nForce2 systems featuring NVIDIA
SoundStorm™ audio.
 
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