Onboard Sound Vs SoundBlaster

AC97 vs Sounblaster 128

[knighty]

Upgrading my P2-400 to AMD Ath. XP 1800 - got the chip, MB, Geforce card and 333mhzDDR RAM

BUT.....

the MB has an onboard AC97 sound.

Should I leave it on or should I use my old souncard which I bought 2-3 years ago?

Will the onboard sound be better than my old SoundBlaster?

primarily to be used for gaming :)

[Reflect]

If gaming is your game (pun intended ;)) then go with the SB. It will blow away the onboard chip. Even if the SB is a few years old. You might also wander over to www.pricewatch.com (broken link) and price Audigy 1 cards. The new SB audigy 2 cards just came out so OEMs I am sure are scrambling to get rid of one step down technology.

Also you might want to check out your power supply, make sure it is over 350 watts.

Brian

[knighty]

right, thanks

I will disable the onboard sound and plug in my trusty soundblaster :)

I have 250 power supply, why do I need more? (ignorance here)

What will happen if I dont have 350?

[sun818]

Your computer starts having all sorts of problems when there is not enough juice running to it. Hard disk CRC errors, random blue screens, memory errors. Get the 350 watt.

[copongcopong]

better to have a higher wattage(at least 300W) for Athlon/AMD chips, a lower rating of power supply may fry your processor.

[knighty]

Well installed everything last night, everything runs fine..

Except GeForce Ti200 64MB, just get beeps like its not seated properly - but it is!

If i swap it back to my Voodoo3 it works fine. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Could this all be down to the PSU? You would think that it would at least boot up OK.

[Reflect]

Put an e-mail into your mobo manufacture asking them if they have any issues with your EXACT graphics card, some older mobos do :(.

Also, what is the AGP slot set to in your mobo bios? You might want to bump it up to 4 if the mobo is capable (be prepared to bump it back down though in increments).

I'm debating getting a 9700 graphics card, just have to pimp my wife out for the cash though :).

Brian