on board sound or pci card

[pkd7423]

To all,

Abit IC7-G
P4 2.8
ATI Radeon AIW 9800 Pro 128
(2) 120gig IDE Maxtor HDD
Lite-On LDW-411S DVD+-R/+-RW
1GB Kingston DDR400 PC3200 non ECC memory
Altech Lansing 251 speakers 5.1 surround
XP Pro with SP1
.....etc


Which is the lesser of 2 evils: using on board sound or using PCI card sound?

I've heard that on board sound uses 2-5% of the cpu and is a problem for gamers......(the reason I built this for my son)....

I have also heard that using Creative cards on the PCI bus is a hog there.

Which way to go?

Or, PCI with a card other than Creative?

Thanks,

[CDRecorder]

I'm currently using a Creative SBLive card in my main computer, and it was fine. If I were to buy the IC7-G, I'd probably try the onboard sound first, and upgrade to another sound card later if I wasn't satisfied with the onboard sound.

[Turkeyscore.com]

onboard sound is fine, but you either get 5.1 with no mic or line in, 4.1/4.0 with mic/line in, or 2.1/2.0 with mic and line in.

[tazdevl]

Depends on the card. If it's just for games, you really should get an Audigy 2. It has fairly low CPU utilization and doesn't have a huge impact on frame rates. The benefit of getting the Audigy 2 is that most games are optimized for the hardware... unlike onboard sound solutions.

SBLive and the first revision of the Audigy were PCI bus hogs, Audigy 2's are very well behaved. My only advice is to just install the drivers for any creative labs product. The other software that comes with it are typically very buggy and are also the cause of a lot of the problems with the cards.

[pkd7423]

Well, I have had some problems with the onboard.....

When I try the speaker test that came with the mobo by clicking on the speakers in the picture, some of them are not right....

For instance, if I click on the the center speaker the sound comes from my left rear......if I click on the sub-woofer the sound comes from my center channel...... (I may not have the exact sequence here....but suffice it say that the sound is not coming from the correct speakers using this sound test)

The Altech Lansing 251's are color coded and keyed when they plug into the sub woofer....also the speakers themselves are labeled front rear, center, rear left....and so on.

I think the only ones that work correctly in this test are the left and right front.

All that said, when my son plays Counter Strike it sounds fine...when I play mpeg3's it sounds fine. Though I'm not sure we get too much sound from left and right rear.
Just the speaker test seems weird.

Any ideas? Is there another speaker test that I can download for 5.1 surround testing?

I may be imagining a problem with none exist. It seems the speaker test is the only thing that is bothering me......

It's just plain weird!

Thanks,