gOOters October 9, 2004 Share gOOters Member October 9, 2004 Well, I havent dropped in my new processor yet, it hasnt gotten here. But I am gearing up for HL2 retail and Source retail. My system will look like: AMD 3200+ Barton Asus A7N8X-X (NForceII) MoBo 1 Gig PC 3200 RAM ATi Radeon 9800Pro 128MB QUERY: However, my sound is built onto the MoBo. Would I get a noticable performance bump if I added a cheap sound card to the mix? It would NEED to be cheap, like $20 ir so. I am expecting my comp to be able to handle HL2 and source pretty well, but I know it isnt top of the line or whatever, thoughts on that too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest zerodamage October 9, 2004 Share Guest zerodamage Guests October 9, 2004 With the Nforce2 and onboard Soundstorm Nvidia sound, you do not need a sound card. Trust me, the onboard sound is as good performance and quality wise as an Audigy card. The performance of the soundstorm is great. You will be fine in that department. Just make sure you get the latest drivers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gOOters October 9, 2004 Author Share gOOters Member October 9, 2004 With the Nforce2 and onboard Soundstorm Nvidia sound, you do not need a sound card. Trust me, the onboard sound is as good performance and quality wise as an Audigy card. The performance of the soundstorm is great. You will be fine in that department. Just make sure you get the latest drivers. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Thats pretty cool to know THanks ZD, but it wont drain my MoBo processor to use the onboard sound (i.e. affect online gaming performance and graphics processing)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest zerodamage October 9, 2004 Share Guest zerodamage Guests October 9, 2004 No, the onboard soundstorm uses the Nvidia DSP chip to handle the processing. It is the best onboard sound out there. Unfortunately Nforce-3 doesn't have it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crowbar October 10, 2004 Share Crowbar Member October 10, 2004 I don't even have a N-Force board and I use onboard sound. It works fine, except in certain games (i.e. The Matrix Online) where a sound card is required. I've given away my SB Live Value and SB Live 5.1 cards, so I'll probably just pop in an old Diamond Monster MX400 sound card. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
random_n00b October 10, 2004 Share random_n00b Member October 10, 2004 A7N8X-X doesn't have the soundstorm chip (I'd know - I have that mobo. Plus Asus says so.) but it's still a pretty good sound mixer. I didn't notice any performance difference when using it, but I still use my SBLive because of the almighty kX drivers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gOOters October 10, 2004 Author Share gOOters Member October 10, 2004 thx guys Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now