Audigy 2 ZS or Onboard Sound

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.