Hi

I've just bought a new computer system which will arrive in a few days time. With all of my other systems, I've always added a standalone sound card (Creative), but this time there is no dedicated card, only the integrated one which comes with the mobo.

The guy over the phone suggested that the mobo's card will do fine for games and things, but when I told him I wanted to use the computer for music composition too, I got a vague reply.

So my question is (I'm too curious to wait to find out), will I be better off getting a latest gen (X-Fi) Creative card, or will the inbuilt one be fine? If I can get a few fps extra in games that may sway me, as they're really very cheap these days. Plus, old habits die hard... Integrated sound has always been quite dodgy- maybe times have changed?

I have a good ear so I'll probably notice the difference in quality if there is any. Also, do integrated cards support EAX nowadays?

Any advice on this?

All I'll say is there is no freaking way you will not notice the difference between on board and a good card as long as you have decent speakers. The sound card I got for my computer was the most satisfying upgrade I've ever done - by a mile.

Haha, well that's what I thought as well. It was just weird that the guy on the phone really advised against getting a soundcard. I mean, it's his job to sell things!

Well if you want to do audio composition you should ditch the on board since the on board audio uses cpu cycles and in some cases lossy quality audio. X-Fi wasn't intended for professional audio production and I should recommend something like from M-audio or similar companies that specializes on professional audio. the price maybe Steep but worth it. Hope that helps

Well, IF you are going to get an expensive card, definitely take a look at the Asus Xonar.

I don't really need to go too all-out. My previous Audigy card coped well with most tasks, and the X-Fi's are beefier and have better sound quality than the Audigys, so I'll probably be happy with one of those.

Thanks guys- I'll just play around with the onboard card for a bit and then grab a cheap X-Fi down the road sometime...

excellect sound quality, low latency, reasonable price: http://www.m-audio.com/produc ... /Audiophile2496-main.html

this card has served me well for many years

I got two sound cards dedicated to music production, on each of them I'm able to tell a difference from the integrated chips in terms of noise, hiss, interference from internal computer components, dynamic range and distortion. The M-Audio FastTrack USB Pro I use for field recordings has a very low output power compared to the WaveTerminal 192x (no longer sold) I use on a desktop for editing. Moreover it crackles from time to time during playback (no problem during recording), but I assume it's due to my old laptop; although I'm not enthusiastic generally I'm fine with the sound card considering it's cheap. On top of that the presence of good dedicated ASIO drivers on both cards help me avoid the headaches of going down the route of generic ASIO.

I'm perfectly fine with the WaveTerminal, the quality of its DACs is excellent and latency is really low. There's no EAX support on both cards which cope well with games but certainly they aren't the best choice for the task, but then again I use a third machine for gaming at the moment using the integrated low quality chipset. The moral for me is, if you buy a soundcard for music production and you're half-serious about it get a semi-pro one (read carefully the reviews, such cards can be troublesome!). If you're into gaming and multimedia the integrated chipset may suffice, otherwise get a SoundBlaster.

The X-Fi WILL sound better than onboard (even on my crappy speakers i can hear the difference!) and in some games nets you an extra few FPS, but it's for gaming (ie latest EAX support), not for Music Creation.

If your gaming then the X-Fi XtremeMusic rocks, however if your going for the music creation side ditch the X-Fi and get an M-Audio or similar.

Quote from Not Sure :

excellect sound quality, low latency, reasonable price: http://www.m-audio.com/produc ... /Audiophile2496-main.html

this card has served me well for many years

I have that soundcard. Even if you're not considering music composition then it's worth it anyway just because you can use a proper hifi interconnect to wire it up to your rig (it doesn't come with a 3.5mm jack output). I'm not sure if the better cable was the main reason I noticed better quality sound or not, no doubt the sound card had some effect too (I upgraded from onboard), but the cards are great value and having audio outputs on your PC just looks cool. Plus you can use the internal card for things like skype, so voices come out of your headset while you can be listening to mp3s through your speakers. Tis bloody marvellous.