My EPOX EP-K8DA3+ motherboard sound card (Realtek) is pretty good and sounds are also top notch. I have an older Audigy lying around which I could put in to the board. Do you think it would be worth it? Will it free up resources on the MB for other tasks? What advantage if I upgrade to the newer Audigy cards?ThanksShez

Advantage is considerably better audio as well as a bit less CPU usage. No excuse not to plug it in if you have it and don

The Nforce chipsets have pretty good onboard audio - low CPU usage. The problem tends to be the analogue outputs but if you get decent sound quality that isn't a problem.The Audigy "1" isn't that great really. Quite high CPU usage and not a very big improvement over the SBLive in terms of actual sound quality. So you may not get any better performance with it or possibly even worse performance. I suggest you set up some kind of benchmark so you can compare.

I upgraded from Live to Audigy there is a mile difference between the two in particular sound quality. Live though when it was released was quite good has very muddy sound. In particular bass management but that have always been a weak point in Creative cards. More or less requiring Creative speakers sometimes to work well.Nforce chipsets it

OK thanks guys, I think an Audigy 2 might be in the offing then...RegardsShez

There's another reason to drop that sound card into your motherboard... heat. It has to do with the C0,C1,and C2 states of the AthlonXP CPU's and nForce2 chipsets. More info here. Although this was found in an ASUS forum it applies to all nForce2 boards and onboard peripherals. There is also an AMD White paper on this issue although I can't find it now.Simple conclusion... adding that Audigy will allow the AthlonXP/nForce chipset combo to run cooler.Greg

I could not open the article but having read other forums on this I think it is worth investing in an A2. Thanks for your usual support info.RegardsShez