Is it Worth Installing "old" Audigy Sound Blaster into a new Computer?
 

Would there be any benefit to installing an old (lying around the house spare part) Sound Blaster Audigy (SB0310) into a new (64 bit) computer? To phrase this differently, would the Audigy have better sound quality than the (motherboard's) on-board sound?

Given the advances in computer technology, I suspect not.

Hello

I'm still using my Audigy card from years ago and it does all that I need. It's still working great under Linux.

Creative are bastards for the branding they use, and the audigy LS has a cut down chipset compare to the other audigy cards. Things like that are one of the reasons why I wont touch creative anymore.

Its probably still better sounding than on-board sound, depending on what sound chip and motherboard you have. If the creative drivers were any good, I'd say 'yes, it will beb better' but with creative, it might not be true.

It shouldn't take more than 10 to 20 minutes to remove the cover, install the audigy card, then fire it up and test it to see what you think of the audio output. Let us know how it goes, either way.

I hope that I can get back to you on this by next weekend. Work and relatives will keep me busy for next week. Today, was spent re-creating an account for my wife on another computer and adding the old hard drives as back-up drives and backing-up data. Though successful, it turned out to be very time consuming and tedious.

I doubt it will be better than the sound on the newer mobos as they usually are hd.

The benefit of the soundblaster is that it contains a hardware mixer. That's a big plus.

Audigy LS has no hardware mixer.

Onboard HD audio isnt any better than decent sound cards, and while the audigy LS is pretty crappy in many ways it is should sound better than pretty much any onboard audio...at least with windows. With linux, its harder to say.

The main reason why I'm not running an ancient SB live! in my 'desktop' system instead of the onboard HD audio is because of the resampling issues with SB live cards (resamples eveything to 48KHz, which sucks when you play many 44.1KHz files).

I removed the Audigy LS from a now dead computer, which I am replacing. The card may well be around 8 years old and I am wondering if there will even be a slot in the new computer (when it arrives) that it would fit into. The facts-of-life, at some point old hardware has outlived its usefulness and simply needs to be replaced.

The cheaper budget SB cards were pretty much like your average onboard sound, i.e. software based. So it's often the case that using them over the onboard HD sound will yield little to no benefit - and take up a PCI slot. And no, the new PC may not even have a PCI slot.

You are right.

The vast majority of comptuers still come with PCI slots. Without knowing what computer you are buying I cant say for sure, but I'd guess there is a 95%+ chance you'll have a PCI slot.

Anotehr fact of life- somethign made for a particular use (like a sound card) tends to be better than something that is just 'bundled' into another product to make it more cost effective and/or attractive to end users (like onboard sound).

Yeah, they chpeaer creative stuff is semisoftware based. That deosnt make onboard sound the equal of an older soundblaster. I've seen lots of discussion about what sound card/chip is better than another, and most of the time I see people quoting SNR (sinal noise ratio) numbers to 'prove' the point. Thats only part of the story.

I've used a lot of sound cards, and they all sound different. Some people prefer the sound from onboard audio, some people prefer the sound from a card. The only way to know for sure it to try both (and never assume that all onboard sound will be the same, you can even get differences between the same onboard sound chip on different motherboards...)

Thats why I hate creative rebranding cards. The reason why the Audigy SE/LS etc. dont support hardware mixing is because they dont use augidy chips, its more like a minor upgrade to the SBlive! chips.

"the ones best supported on Linux" gives the impression that creative cards are a good choice for linux. Theer are other sound cards aroudn that are easy to get and have better support.

I've marked this post as solved. I will be forgoing using the old Audigy Sound Blaster. Turns out that the DVD player in the old computer was bought ten years ago!!!:D, So the Audigy may well be that old too. Furthermore, it seems that the video card in the old computer was wearing out. My wife noted a substantial improvement when I hooked up her monitor to her new computer. I had been moving the cards/hardware from one "old" computer to a "new" computer for quite some time. Thanks for your helpful thoughts.

Not even trying on the basis that the card could be 10 years old? I'd still give it a try, you might be suprised.

Onboard audio is built for cheapness. While creative has quite a few issues, they did build those sound cards better than any onboard audio I've heard of.....

We have 2023 and cards like Live! of various versions and Adigy works well! I had to use PCI-to-PCIe adapter board but no problems with Fedora 38. Hardware mixer does the job! I have CT4830, SB0220 and friends - all works out ouf the box. The sound quality is outstanding way better than on-board chips. Then yes, if you can you definitely should use those great sound cards!