Ac97 Audio is horendus. Is the Sound Blaster 5.1 better ?

[CandymanCan]

I mooved from an Nforce 2 board with soundstorm to this Nfroce 3 250gb board the Ac97 is horrible.

I have a sound blaster 5.1 card here it that card better then on board Ac97 ?

 

[Enablingwolf]

oh yes!!! I think onbaord steals CPU bandwidth too. I like to think of onboard as backup when my cards fail, and waiting to get new card.

 

[Diggrr]

Yeah, it sounds better.
I also like the onboard volume control pin-set. I modded a an old two button mouse to give me control over the volume directly on the card.

Unfortunately, me wife has my 5.1 live mp3 in her machine right now, and I'm using the AC97 on my board. Mine's not too bad, guess it's how the maker implements it.
But the 5.1's definately going to come back to me soon.

 

[Agent_Mull]

ya, my old gigabyte board had the ac97 audio. it poped and cracked. I love my soundstorm. And it doenst really steal cpu cycles.

 

[DaWiper]

If we are talking SB live, then YES! It's a lot better than any AC97 I've heard. It has more controlled sound and are IMO better in every way... That's just me...

 

[realms]

go with onboard. Soundblaster= crappy support and some compatability issues.

Do you really need EAX etc?

 

[Agent_Mull]

No he probably doesnt need eax, but he needs good sound. The sb will be better than the ac97.

 

[Calculusaurus]

go with onboard. Soundblaster= crappy support and some compatability issues.

Wrong.

The Ac97 sounds just terrible. I have it with the nForce3 mobo in my sig. But if you look close enough (at my sig), you can also see a SB Live 5.1.

I use the SB Live as my default sound option: my speaker plug in there and my headphones will occasionally take over. My case has front panel audio ports -- one for headphones and one for mic. Well, just for fun I wanted to test out the front panel with my headphones. Of course, the front panel could only plug into the motherboard, which equals onboard sound for the front panel.

After testing out the Ac97 once, I was disgusted. I was listening to Bjork at the moment and felt that her voice turned into this sharp, dissonent razor, instead of her natural, soft voice. In the interest of science, I suppose, I decided to test out several audio instances: I did a side-by-side comparison of wide-ranging music (from classical, to techno, to jazz) and then tried out a couple games (UT2k4, mostly). In all instances, the SB Live sounded miraculously better than the Ac97.

Hehe, after experiences such differences, I'm tempted to upgrade to an Audigy to see if the same rule holds >.< please don't make me spend anymore money

 

[Enablingwolf]

go with onboard. Soundblaster= crappy support and some compatability issues.

Do you really need EAX etc?

Creative not compatable......
If I am not mistaken, from even the days of DOS you had an option of SoundBlaster products, or you had to configure the sound yourself. Even to this day SoundBlatser is probally the easiest and most compatable cards out there.
I do agree the support does fall a bit short on occasion. Been there done that. There is alot of option besides SoundBlaster for non-onboard sound. I have yet to see a real nice onboard the delivers like a card does.

 

[Steven4563]

i would go with a SB5.1 over AC97 it does sound like crap ive had it and used it i didnt really think it was bad intill i heard my soundstorm

 

[Disputant]

Absolutely, I went through the same thing on my second rig. I noticed a big difference in sound my quality.

 

[Calculusaurus]

now... time for all of us to attack nVidia with hatemail demanding to know why they didn't include soundstorm for their nForce3 chipsets

 

[realms]

If you have a motherboard that creative doesn't like, be prepared for errors upon errors. Of course i know creative is a good company, except for santa cruz they are the only option so posting all this hooplah about the good old dos days and quality doesn't really tell me anything i didn't know already. Have any of you ever posted on creatives forums for help? Go through that and you'll know what i'm talking about.

If you're not gaming etc, there is no real reason to justify taking creative over onboard, hell if you are look at the santa cruz lines of cards.

 

[Enablingwolf]

I have tried the "DarnBlaster help before, I did mention there is other options to SB products over onboard. I mentioned it is the most comaptable/easiest card out there, not that it is the best. To add a little... some of them DO exceed SB in Quality.
Edit:My Yamaha sound card blows the AC97 outta the water in music. I am not much of a gamer, mostly Video/Music. It sounds much better than the onboard.
"I have yet to see a real nice onboard the delivers like a card does." I'll take my 4channel card over the 6channel onboard.

 

[Dc5e]

i believe theres a Audigy->Audigy2 mod in the sound card section of the forums... so you could get this and try the mod

 

[Mr.Radar]

Hehe, after experiences such differences, I'm tempted to upgrade to an Audigy to see if the same rule holds >.< please don't make me spend anymore money

If you want a better quality card for music don't get the Audigy, instead get the Chaintech AV-710 and set it up properly. I have one and it's much better than my NF7-S onboard.

 

[Foxie3a]

I tried the integrated sound on my P4P800 and it couldn't compete with my Sound Blaster that came with my Pentium 2 back in 1997. That tells you something about integrated sound.