System and onboard sound

[Yomat]

Oh wello. Long time no posto. Guess its system building time again.

As far as I've seen the current flavours of systems now roughly:
AMD socket 939 processor
Crossfire chipset on undervoltable mobo
DDR 400
Scythe cooler
Antec P150 or P180 or some other with 120mm in/out-take.
Samsung HD
Some passive cooled mid range gfx card like Gf 6600.

Left is the PSU. A bit of a tossup between whats in the case I get and what is available around here. Usually the good seasonics are somewhat hard to find around here.

Whats more tricky is sound though. How is it with onboard sound these days? Is the analog output good enough? What boards have digital output, if any? If you wanna get a soundcard what level do you have to aim at to make it worthwhile? I'm not interested in sound _performace_ which the marketeers are focusing in these days. I'm just interested in music playback quality that at least beat portable devices.

[Sizzle]

What kind of speaker system do you have for you computer?

I have a Creative Inspire 5xxx model with it's own decoder box (like having a reciever on a smaller scale) and it decodes DDL and DTS. So I'm using a CrossFire mobo with DDL output onboard sound. I output via the digital out in DDL for analog audio. If you are going to just use Analog out, I think most Crossfire use Realtek, which probably is a subpar analog system. One of the MSI Crossfire motherboards uses a onboard Audigy chipset, which would be OK. You could also pick up the Chaintech Via Envy based sound card. It's cheap and provides good analog playback.

[lenny]

Whats more tricky is sound though. How is it with onboard sound these days? Is the analog output good enough? What boards have digital output, if any?

I'm far from an expert in audio quality, but the main difference (other than CPU utilization in games which you're not interested in) is S/N ratio. MB audio is typically more noisy.

Some motherboards have the audio connectors on a riser, claiming it cuts down on interference. Some of these are Crossfire boards and come with digital out (e.g. DFI LanParty UT RDX200 CF DR). I don't have any personal experience with that onboard audio. My newest motherboard is almost 2 years old, and my experience with that (and with older onboard audio) is that I can hear a window scrolling through my headphones.

The nice thing about audio is that 1) its hard to find a board without onboard audio these days and 2) its easy to upgrade later. So don't let the audio be a major issue when choosing a MB.

[Yomat]

Ah. Good answers! Almost forgot how good this forum is.

What kind of speaker system do you have for you computer?

Right now I use almost only headphones. I forgot to mention that the speaker system is also under planning. I suppose its a joint decision with the sound of the system. I'll be looking into what kind of speaker systems and amps do have digital in and what decoders they use.
And the Chaintech would me nice for headphones. I read alot about them in a headphone forum I read now and then. Problem is that they are shot down by Creative around here so I would have to specially order it.

The nice thing about audio is that 1) its hard to find a board without onboard audio these days and 2) its easy to upgrade later. So don't let the audio be a major issue when choosing a MB.

True, true. However.. there is always the question about money etc. Even if you have plenty enough money, you want to spend where it matters. That is, if a better mobo choice would make a later upgrade unnecessary.

[Pierce]

if you're going for the p150 a psu is included and p180 i'd suggest a seasonic psu which is quiet and efficient as you'll see on this site

[jackylman]

Right now I use almost only headphones.

I wouldn't spend too much money on speakers if you're a headphone user. Even after I upgraded my speakers (they're Logitechs, not the greatest, but pretty good for compter speakers) I still found myself using an old cheap pair of headphones and hardly using the speakers.

Speakers may sound better on paper, but headphones offer the best "experience"

[JazzJackRabbit]

Whats more tricky is sound though. How is it with onboard sound these days? Is the analog output good enough? What boards have digital output, if any? If you wanna get a soundcard what level do you have to aim at to make it worthwhile? I'm not interested in sound _performace_ which the marketeers are focusing in these days. I'm just interested in music playback quality that at least beat portable devices.

Depends on your needs. There should be very little to no difference in digital outs, whether it's on-board or separate sound card, so if you do not plan to use analogue outs you can just buy motherboard with digital out. If you're using analogue out, I would strongly suggest purchasing separate soundcard as analogue outs on motherboards are typically very noisy. Well that actually depends on particular motherboard and your ears. For sound card I'd recommend either AudioTrak Prodigy 7.1 - an excellent compromise between sound quality stable drivers and all the new features supported including 7.1 sound and DTS if you're into that(although hard to find in the US right now), e-mu 1212m (best DACs and no resampling, but tricky setup, possible driver issues and only 2.0 sound support, plus you'll probably need an amplifier to your headphones or an adapter) or Audigy 4 which has excellent DACs, and new resampling algorithm is supposed to be good, although as always beware of creative overbloated drivers, or you could get chaintech if you're on a budget.

[SLOTh]

i almost never use my headphones (only for gaming) i have a old 60's tube amp and a pair of 300 a pair jbl contractor grade speakers i guess my sound rig is prolly worth about 700 new... but the amp is a family item

my speakers sound way better and create a much better experience... just the gun fire scares the neighbors...