onboard sound or sound card?

  • Thread starter Thread starter mig
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M

mig

i am wondering whether it is worth getting a sound card in place of the
onboard sound on my K7S5A. i currently have 2 speakers and would only
consider upgrading to a 2.1 speaker system and not a 4.1,5.1, etc speaker
system as i have no need for anything more than 2.1 as i dont see the point
in having a better sound system on my pc than my tv.

anyway i want to know how significant the performance can increase with a
sound card over onboard sound as i play games all the time and always listen
to music when im not playing games. or would i be better advised to put a
second 512MB DDR PC2100 stick in and pay the extra ~£30?

current specs:
ECS K7S5A
2000+ AMD Athlon XP
256MB DDR PC2100
60gig Seagate Barracuda
64MB DDR ATI Radeon 7500
 
mig said:
i am wondering whether it is worth getting a sound card in place of the
onboard sound on my K7S5A. i currently have 2 speakers and would only
consider upgrading to a 2.1 speaker system and not a 4.1,5.1, etc speaker
system as i have no need for anything more than 2.1 as i dont see the point
in having a better sound system on my pc than my tv.

anyway i want to know how significant the performance can increase with a
sound card over onboard sound as i play games all the time and always listen
to music when im not playing games. or would i be better advised to put a
second 512MB DDR PC2100 stick in and pay the extra ~£30?

current specs:
ECS K7S5A
2000+ AMD Athlon XP
256MB DDR PC2100
60gig Seagate Barracuda
64MB DDR ATI Radeon 7500
Click to expand...


TBH, it depends on what you are doing with your computer. If all you are
doing is playing a few games and listening to music now and again, then
I very much doubt it is worth spending money.

If on the other hand you want the super duper 5.1 sound or you are using
your computer to record the Cristams number one in the charts, then you
will need something decent.

I suggest you get some more memory, It seems like your sound chip will
do you fine.
 
I'd have to agree,256MB is low for an XP system.Games especially would
benefit more from more memory
as opposed to a new soundcard.
 
mig said:
i am wondering whether it is worth getting a sound card in place of
the onboard sound on my K7S5A. i currently have 2 speakers and would
only consider upgrading to a 2.1 speaker system and not a 4.1,5.1,
etc speaker system as i have no need for anything more than 2.1 as i
dont see the point in having a better sound system on my pc than my
tv.

anyway i want to know how significant the performance can increase
with a sound card over onboard sound as i play games all the time and
always listen to music when im not playing games. or would i be
better advised to put a second 512MB DDR PC2100 stick in and pay the
extra ~£30?

current specs:
ECS K7S5A
2000+ AMD Athlon XP
256MB DDR PC2100
60gig Seagate Barracuda
64MB DDR ATI Radeon 7500
Click to expand...

You play first-person 3-dimensional games on your television? No, but
you might on a computer. I've played several games in which I can use
my hearing to discern location without having to take my eyes off of
something else. For example, I can monitor the whereabouts of a
patrolling guard while watching how to pick open a door or punching in a
code. If I happen to forget to turn on the rear speakers, I'd wonder
how that guard snuck up on me only to realize it was because I didn't
hear him coming from that direction. But not to go with rear speakers
is your choice. Perhaps you only play flat 2-dimensional games that
cannot produce sound from all directions. In that case, the onboard
sound is probably fine. As to whether you need more memory depends on
what operating system you are running - which you do not mention. Since
95-based Windows uses cooperative multitasking, tis easy 'nuff to
shutdown other apps and just play a game to have it the only [major]
process running, so even 256 MB is probably good enough but you really
need to check your games to see what are their *recommended* hardware
configuration (rather than just their minimum requirement). You might
get more gaming enjoyment just by replacing your power supply and case
fans with quieter units.
 
probably gonna go for the memory and possibly hook up my hifi speakers to
the pc as the crappy ones i have at the moment are unable to handle sound at
a decent volume without sounding crackly and i cannot see the sound card
being responsible for this as it seems decent enough

any one suggest the cheapest place to buy 512mb DDR PC2100 in the uk?

--

mig



Vanguard said:
mig said:
i am wondering whether it is worth getting a sound card in place of
the onboard sound on my K7S5A. i currently have 2 speakers and would
only consider upgrading to a 2.1 speaker system and not a 4.1,5.1,
etc speaker system as i have no need for anything more than 2.1 as i
dont see the point in having a better sound system on my pc than my
tv.

anyway i want to know how significant the performance can increase
with a sound card over onboard sound as i play games all the time and
always listen to music when im not playing games. or would i be
better advised to put a second 512MB DDR PC2100 stick in and pay the
extra ~£30?

current specs:
ECS K7S5A
2000+ AMD Athlon XP
256MB DDR PC2100
60gig Seagate Barracuda
64MB DDR ATI Radeon 7500
Click to expand...

You play first-person 3-dimensional games on your television? No, but
you might on a computer. I've played several games in which I can use
my hearing to discern location without having to take my eyes off of
something else. For example, I can monitor the whereabouts of a
patrolling guard while watching how to pick open a door or punching in a
code. If I happen to forget to turn on the rear speakers, I'd wonder
how that guard snuck up on me only to realize it was because I didn't
hear him coming from that direction. But not to go with rear speakers
is your choice. Perhaps you only play flat 2-dimensional games that
cannot produce sound from all directions. In that case, the onboard
sound is probably fine. As to whether you need more memory depends on
what operating system you are running - which you do not mention. Since
95-based Windows uses cooperative multitasking, tis easy 'nuff to
shutdown other apps and just play a game to have it the only [major]
process running, so even 256 MB is probably good enough but you really
need to check your games to see what are their *recommended* hardware
configuration (rather than just their minimum requirement). You might
get more gaming enjoyment just by replacing your power supply and case
fans with quieter units.

--
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