Chris said:
Which one has better sound, Realtek ALC1200 or VIA VT1708s?
Chris
The VT1708s isn't listed here.
http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/audio/codecs/hd-codecs.jsp
There are no specs for the ALC1200! Instead, we have to
rely on measurements.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/asus-p5q-pro_4.html
Real sound cards tend to have noise specs (S/N ratio), giving you some idea
what the background noise level is like. Motherboard sound implementations
are always careful never to quote such numbers (because it implies they
actually test the design to see how well it is doing). There
have been some monumentally bad motherboard sound solutions, like
one where some Ethernet wiring was run in parallel with audio
signals. It is harder to achieve good background noise levels,
due to the other circuitry in the vicinity, and the possibility of
carelessness. Even an HDaudio solution on a riser card, may work
better than when it is soldered to the motherboard.
So there isn't a way with your two examples, to do a spec comparison.
The driver is the other issue. To give an example of why that is
important, I had a problem with my onboard sound. If I tried to
listen to music, it sounded "muddy". At first, not being an audio
guy, I didn't know what was going on. But eventually I came up
with a test, that identified "echo" added by the driver. (The echo
came 30 milliseconds after the signal, and was added by the driver.)
The audio control panel offered ambience settings, such as "cave",
"concert hall", "small room" and the like. Some had a lot of echo
added. Well, I tried the "None" setting, and there was still echo
present. Reluctantly, I had to switch to my cheesy PCI sound card
(still in use to this day). When that is set to "None", it is
really "None".
The driver can have a lot to do with whether you use it.
The background motherboard noises may drive you to distraction.
For example, 24 bit audio is so far down in the soup, that
background noise may only make 16 of those bits "real" in a
listening sense. So the digital path is not likely to be the
limiting factor for usability. It will be the things you can
only find in motherboard reviews. I'd try a search on "ALC1200 noise"
or "VT1708 noise" and see what pops up. Or simply read the
reviews on Newegg, for the motherboard in question, and see
if someone used the sound or not.
Paul
