on-board sound (p8z68-v pro) or x-fi platinum

D

Danith

2[H]4U
Joined
Oct 13, 2004
Messages
2,618
When I upgraded to my current rig I didn't bother putting in my original x-fi platinum. My birthday is coming up at the beginning of March so I decided to buy myself the ATH-A900 headphones which is a huge change from the cheap headphones I'm used to.
I'm wondering if the x-fi will give me better sound then the on-board sound of the p8z68-v pro motherboard.
The motherboard has a Realtek ALC892 chip, and it does have some dolby headphone thing. I also seem to recall having some issues with my x-fi and win 7 which is why I haven't gone ahead and done it yet.
 
Some say source is the most important part of your setup. Nice headphones.

What are you listening to?
 
Gaming sounds, random music from my playlist that can vary from Rock to Metal to Classical :)
 
Realtek:
DACs with 95dB SNR (A-weighting), ADCs with 90dB SNR (A-weighting)

All DACs supports 44.1k/48k/96k/192kHz sample rate
All ADCs supports 44.1k/48k/96k/192kHz sample rate


X Fi:
Stereo Output: 109dB
Front and Rear Channels: 109dB
Center, Subwoofer and Side Channels: 109dB

24-bit Analog-to-Digital conversion of analog inputs at 96kHz sample rate
24-bit Digital-to-Analog conversion of digital sources at 96kHz to analog 7.1 speaker output
24-bit Digital-to-Analog conversion of stereo digital sources at 192kHz to stereo output
16-bit to 24-bit recording sampling rates: 8, 11.025, 16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1, 48 and 96kHz

Sources:
http://www.realtek.com/products/productsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=24&PFid=28&Level=5&Conn=4&ProdID=284
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102190 (Yeah, I know)

It might end up depending on outputs and software for you. The SNR on the X Fi is better, probably because it isn't integrated to the MB. Realtek seems to offer higher sample rate, due to slightly newer chips. Some on-board setups have crap microphone inputs.
 
I have the exact same board and whilst its quality seems fairly good, whenever there is high 3D load (games) even with every input muted and the output muted there is a high pitched scream (for want of a better word) in the headphones.

I have just ordered a X-Fi Titanium (I had used a X-Fi fatality PCI card from back in the day, but stopped) to get round the screaming problem. I will compare it to the onboard when it arrives.

My guess is that you won't hear much difference actually, although the X-Fi should be better, and if you install it low down the motherboard away from your CPU, GPU and most of the motherboards power circuitry, it should give a clean output.

My ultimate idea is to use my Titanium to feed an external Optical DAC to a headphone amplifier, thus getting round the screaming, and getting hardware DSP to boot.
 
I think the X Fi will be the card of choice assuming it plays well as far as drivers. Something tells me 192kHz isn't all that useful.

An engineer once told me that you digitally sample at twice the frequency of the analog. Personally I only hear up to 18kHz, which is a fifth of the sample rate of the X Fi.
 
Why not just drop $20 on a Xonar DG? Better sound than onboard, and it's a newer card so you won't have any driver issues. The Xonar DX is also on sale (after rebate) for about $65, that's another step up.
 
I just built a new PC last week and have the PCI version of the XFi Fatalty card, but didn't put it in the new PC. I wanted to see if the new "HD" audio was at least equal for gaming... and it's not. I play mostly Battlefield 2, well pretty much only BF2. There is a clear difference in quality of sound when gaming. Without the XFi it's harder to hear the direction of the shot. CMSS is the bomb and can't live without it.

XFi was terrible about good drivers for the AGP/PCI bus systems. I had to reboot twice every time so I wouldn't get the crack, snapple, pops during play. Even after Win7 the issue remained but the drivers do work in 64bit.

Prolly a stupid question but will the older PCI card work just as well in the new PC?
 
Depends on the driver support, but assuming there is a Win 7 driver it should work just fine.
 
Use Daniel_k's Drivers and you should be fine.
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=352964


dbthump said:
I just built a new PC last week and have the PCI version of the XFi Fatalty card, but didn't put it in the new PC. I wanted to see if the new "HD" audio was at least equal for gaming... and it's not. I play mostly Battlefield 2, well pretty much only BF2. There is a clear difference in quality of sound when gaming. Without the XFi it's harder to hear the direction of the shot. CMSS is the bomb and can't live without it.

XFi was terrible about good drivers for the AGP/PCI bus systems. I had to reboot twice every time so I wouldn't get the crack, snapple, pops during play. Even after Win7 the issue remained but the drivers do work in 64bit.

Prolly a stupid question but will the older PCI card work just as well in the new PC?
Click to expand...
Shouldn't be an issue as long as you find modified drivers or use only the features in the creative drivers that work. I believe the link i posted above supports that card aswell
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top