- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
1. Chewie, not great, not as good as a socket 754 or 939 A64, but it will run decent. It's for socket A, right?
2. It's the soundcard. I'll tell you why. Onboard sound is absolute crap if the CPU or system is under heavy load. I won't go into specifics, but...the movement of a LOT of data over your mobo, through those little embedded wires and transistors and 8+ layers of PCB board with 8+ layers of wiring...causes static-ish interefence for devices, especially those that deal with sound. The onboard ends up receiving this and the sound becomes scratchy. So, for instance, the Fatal1ty board I have, instead of coming with onboard sound, came with a sound card instead - solve the crunchy noise problem.
So, since the sound card is off the board surface and a fair distance away, it is nearly isolated. In addition, sound gets muddied by being calculated by the CPU as it travels the path from CPU to chipset to card and back again - so you want a sound card with its own audio processor on it. Your solution?
Audigy 2 ZS. That's the one for you. Onboard sound processing eliminates nearly all static caused by sound signals and audio going through the motherboard's circuitry.
Loved that explanation, eh?
Oh yeah, nice speakers ;)
[Edited on 5/27/2005]