what is better - onboard or a ...

[pbharris]

Hi All,
When ever possible I like to ahve stuff done with real hardware - that said I have a mainboard with onboard sound, VIA sound i think (it is a Tyan Trinity kt400 mB) and i have it disabled because I like to use my sb live, but i am not sure how much better the sb live is.

are there any studies out there that will let me know how much work is off loaded to the cpu for the via sound device.

bonus! is via for the LAN also wasteing cpu cycles - or should i drop in a real NIC (3com or somthing similar)

thanks for any feedback.

[Telexen]

I don't know anything about KT400's audio, so I couldn't tell you

the southbridge chipset handles stuff like that...it isn't taking CPU cycles.

[cbuddha42]

you could try running test with on board sound enabled and disabled to determin the effect on your system

Actually, THG did a study on this.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/game/20030405/index.html

[MrPurple]

Well, honestly you have to see what you are doing. Anything that uses the southbrige will in one way or another waste CPU cycles, but it all depends on what you are doing. If you are playing hardcore games, and have a decent setup you will not notice any drop in performance. On the other hand if you are barely making the recomended spec than using a sound card and NIC might help you out.

[pbharris]

Originally posted by prexaspes
Actually, THG did a study on this.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/game/20030405/index.html

thanks prexaspes - exactly what i was looking for!

and thanks everyone else too!!

[EvilCrow]

I think usually non-integrated sound is better than integrated sound, with the exception of the nForce 2 chipsets.

I really don't hear much of a difference in sound, so onboard sound works just fine for me.

After poking around Tom's a bit, I found a ling showing some stuff about lans, too.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/network...20/nic-09.html

[SeanC]

Unless you need every CPU cycle you can get, go with onboard sound and LAN. Video is questionable because a lot of onboard video chips share the main system RAM, that's not good.

Sean

[ArcticFox]

You should avoid onboard video, and not just because it usually sucks speed-wise. Other than that, it's great to have the dual onboard LAN ports and 6 USB 2.0 to complement the SerialATA RAID and the good sound card that's soldered onto my A7N8X Deluxe. Getting a really good motherboard will benifit you more than getting a faster CPU, because it will save you the trouble of purchasing expensive add-on cards because you went cheap on your mobo.