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AC'97 vs HD Audio

  • 01-12-2007 10:05pm
    #1
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭


    One thing I remember well about AC'97 motherboard audio was that it consumed CPU resources because it didn't have its own processor and offloaded the work to the main CPU. Is this still the case with the new HD Audio (Azalia) chips?

    In other words, is an add-in sound card really that necessary these days?


Comments

  • #2
    astrofool
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,165 ✭✭✭✭astrofool


    Still the same from what I can gather (might even be more with the HD).

    However, CPU's are well able to handle sound processing (even though the SNR mightn't be great), the difference on board makes is getting to within the margin of error for a lot of benchmarks.

    The main reason to go for an add in card is sound quality rather than fps (though that doesn't stop gamers who want those extra few :))


  • #3
    SeanW
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,167 ✭✭✭SeanW


    Karsini wrote: »
    One thing I remember well about AC'97 motherboard audio was that it consumed CPU resources because it didn't have its own processor and offloaded the work to the main CPU. Is this still the case with the new HD Audio (Azalia) chips?

    In other words, is an add-in sound card really that necessary these days?
    CPU processing power has multiplied exponentially over the past few years. So no, you don't have to worry about onboard sound using the CPU.

    Many people find the quality of sound from onboard sound to be sufficient for their needs, but someone who wants their rig to be Uber-1337 will add a soundcard for gaming or whatever, personally I'd say one is just as well off to save the 50-100 €€€s and a PCI slot by not bothering with them.


  • #4
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    I used to have a Socket 754 MSI K8N Neo Platinum motherboard with an AC'97 chip, think it was a Realtek ALC850. The sound quality was terrible, really flat. But it seemed to be an issue specific to that board rather than AC'97 in general because others with that board reported the same problem. So I used a Sound Blaster PCI512 instead.

    My current PC has a Realtek ALC888 HD chip. Sound quality seems fine but I need to set the hardware acceleration to Basic since the sound drivers seem a little buggy in one or two games.

    Thanks for that, was just curious about the specifics behind HD Audio, never really had the time to look into it.


  • #5
    zilog_jones
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,638 ✭✭✭zilog_jones


    Try getting the latest drivers from the Realtek website - they are much more up to date than the ones on the MSI site in my experience. I have an ALC882 and haven't had any trouble, though I don't have any newer games than Source-based stuff lol


  • #6
    nibble
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 514 ✭✭✭nibble


    If you use your pc as a media/music pc and you have it hooked to a decent speaker system then I'd consider a soundcard. The sound quality on a good card is noticeably better than integrated. Or you could go coax/optical to an external dac which would be even better. That doesn't really answer your original question at all, but something to think about.


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