Audigy 2 ZS or Onboard Sound

[patriotdb23]

Hey guys,

I want to make some money and I noticed that when I take out my sound card and use the onboard sound I have on my DFI board it sounds quite similar. The Onboard sound chip I have is a Realtek 885c so basically the matchup is Audigy 2 ZS vs. Realtek 885c. Should I sell the Audigy and make the $30.00 or is it worth it to me?

[Mr. Roboto]

What do you have for speakers? If it sounds the same to you, dump the sound card. The only thing to keep in mind is that your cpu-usage will likely go up when gaming, and you might not have the same EAX support that you got with the card.

[usp8riot]

My onboard Realtek 888 sounds better than my Audigy 2 for music but for gaming, Audigy 2 sounds better. The sound is a little more powerful but not as clear as my Realtek. Though I recently learned drivers (software, not just speaker drivers) can have a lot to do with that but there's a lot of opinion to that question.

[patriotdb23]

I have some Creative 5.1 Speakers that I got like 5 yrs ago. I get the most out of my machine gaming so that's what I'm concerned about.

[usp8riot]

Have you tried gaming with the Audigy vs the Realtek? Depending on the game, there's sometimes a good difference. I also have a Creative 5.1 setup from about 5 years ago so we have roughly the same setup. If you use the Realtek and on Vista, you may get the best sound with the original as I noted in a previous thread. OpenAL games there's not much difference for me but EAX, definitely use the Audigy.