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Audigy 2 ZS or onboard Realtek 889

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RangerXLT8

Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2004
Location
Asheville NC
Audigy 2 ZS or on board Realtek 889 which is on a P35-DS3R. < This boast HD sound and BLuray compatibility...
Which one is better?
 
I use onboard sound on my IP35PRO over my audigy 2 ZS simply because of the driver headache. (I had endless problems trying to get my audigy 2 ZS to work correctly and finally said the hell with it)

That probably doesn't help you, sorry =D
 
I had my audigy 2 ZS running in my old rig and TBH that sound was better than my onboard sound is now.

-games sounded slightly better (difference is negligible in the long run to me though)
-music playback is about the same via my MP3s
-movies sound was the biggest difference, but I really never watch movies on my computer.

The audigy 2 ZS SHOULD sound better, more processing power for sound etc. But then we could argue all day which sounds better to us personally. Everything sounds different to different people, the difference in sound quality may not be enough to justify getting that card etc.

If you have both, try both.
 
I don't know about your board, but my Audigy 2 ZS has much better sound quality than my boards Realtek ALC850. I've heard a lot of people having driver issues with it, but I've never had any, simply install the drivers for the card then the Creative audio console and that's that.
 
I don't know about your board, but my Audigy 2 ZS has much better sound quality than my boards Realtek ALC850. I've heard a lot of people having driver issues with it, but I've never had any, simply install the drivers for the card then the Creative audio console and that's that.

I have the Audigy 2 ZS right here, this is my dads computer. His MB has 889 Realtek, so I could install the audigy. I will install it tonight. I just thought the 889 seemed good because it supports HD audio. And the audigy is an older card, yet still very popular.
 
I have the Audigy 2 ZS right here, this is my dads computer. His MB has 889 Realtek, so I could install the audigy. I will install it tonight. I just thought the 889 seemed good because it supports HD audio. And the audigy is an older card, yet still very popular.

Im sort of in the same boat as you. I have the Abit P35-Pro, and I have the Audigy 2 ZS. I haven't had ANY issues with it (I'm running Vista 64), but I just don't liek to have the card in there. The reason is, no matter where I put it it's either too close to my PSU fan or my VGA fan. I want to just take it out for improved airflow, but idk if its better than the on board my mobo has...
 
Plus the card will offload a lil bit off the CPU so games may run a lil better
 
I use my IP35-Pro over my Audigy 2 myself.

Sounds better, less issues with drivers, less driver bloat, and actually is faster than my Audigy 2. Downside is that it has less voice capibilities so not nearly as much. I run Vista 64-bit and this is my reasoning behind it. Ingame tests, for Crysis on my old E6400 running at 3.4Ghz showed a 3-4FPS increase using my onboard audio over my Audigy 2 card. Another reason, I don't think my Audigy 2 was playing nice with my speakers, I've noticed it for years but never thought of the sounds card and always figured drivers, that sometimes I'd get a hissing sound from them, and it all went away when I used my onboard card.

Another downside with Vista at least in my case is the Audigy 2 didn't give me my EAX sound in games, which sucked without using hacked way of doing it or paying Creative for it. And now, I just said forget it and bought a X-FI today. At least on the cheap the onboard audio does its job nicely and there was frequent driver updates keeping the card up there, it does nice in games I'd say and surely holds its own depending on the situation I'd think but overall its not a horrible solution, expecially if you want to free up some case space for airflow or water pump or something.
 
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