RealTek HD Audio Vs Nvidia HD audio

bikingbuddha

bikingbuddha

Well-Known Member
Today I had to remove the SMSL M100 and FX Audio DAC-X6 from my computer because I moved them to the headphone setup for a listening. It was left with Realtek HD audio (probably a chip made in 2012 or somewhere) to play music.

Out of curiosity I saw this Nvidia HD Audio available in the sound section of windows and It belonged to the graphic card to deliver audio via HDMI. Luckily my monitor has an Audio OUT which i can plug a regular 3.5mm jack as if it is a soundcard.

I tried it and damn! it sounds so much better than the Realtek inbuilt soundcard, it could be placebo beacause my mind thinks "Nvidia to does a better job".

Has anyone tried the Nvidia HD Audio over the onboard stuff? I mean it is onboard of the graphic card (I think).
 
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I have & it defiantly sounds better. So I had the "bug", & pulled the trigger on a Creative sound card. Much better & more options.
 
Realtek is an analog out from the computer, and the Nvidia out would be digital over HDMI. Quality would be controlled by the connected device to the Nvidia.

Motherboard audio usually sucks IME.
 
faber12 said:
Realtek is an analog out from the computer, and the Nvidia out would be digital over HDMI. Quality would be controlled by the connected device to the Nvidia.

Motherboard audio usually sucks IME.
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Nvidia is connected to the monitor via HDMI, monitor has a earphone jack, that i connected my Rotel RA-820 and Monitor Audio Monitor 9 speakers.
 
RealTek can be very good, but most on-motherboard chips are not well implemented.

The NVidia graphics chip digital signal is connected to @bikingbuddha 's monitor via HDMI, which should have a DAC in it which is doing the conversion work. It should show in the documents for the monitor what brand of DAC it is.

Mark Gosdin
 
I am in the market for a new PC and have been pondering over a new soundcard vs a DAC. Even though signal-to-noise ratio is not an indicator of how good something can sound, I'm just using it as a basis for my next endeavour, as i'm not planning on doing soundcard rolling. Plus, I can always use the Equalizer APO software to add EQ, and even to add VST's (such as Tube line stages) to the sound.

Anyhow, i had made the below chart and some may find it useful. I was surprised to find that there are some higher end motherboards that boast a 125db SNR, and also surprised that these 125dB motherboards don't clarify which dB rating is for stereo vs mono, and recording vs DAC playback as lower priced motherboards do.

I remember having an old Sound Blaster Live card that sounded excellent 25 years ago. My current laptop audio-out sounds ok.

The Sound Blaster AE-7 appears to have an outstanding performance/price ratio.

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KentTeffeteller said:
Creative soundcards get easily beaten by other audio interfaces and solutions. Like Focusrite, Behringer, MOTU, AudioScience, Apogee, etc (especially for those who create audio, and not gaming users)
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I heard this but when it comes to comparing with creative stuff and realtek!, If the nvidia HD sounds better than Creative, then definitely it should sound better than old onboard realtek
 
mgosdin said:
RealTek can be very good, but most on-motherboard chips are not well implemented.

The NVidia graphics chip digital signal is connected to @bikingbuddha 's monitor via HDMI, which should have a DAC in it which is doing the conversion work. It should show in the documents for the monitor what brand of DAC it is.

Mark Gosdin
Click to expand...
I really don't know much about this, but can it just be an analog out? i mean HDMI audio comes out of an Analog out just for the speakers?
 
mgosdin said:
RealTek can be very good, but most on-motherboard chips are not well implemented.

The NVidia graphics chip digital signal is connected to @bikingbuddha 's monitor via HDMI, which should have a DAC in it which is doing the conversion work. It should show in the documents for the monitor what brand of DAC it is.

Mark Gosdin
Click to expand...
https://support.lenovo.com/by/en/solutions/t2254pc
Above is the model i have, Lenovo T2254PC

I can't find which is the internal DAC that is inside the monitor. It could be another realtek chip :whip:
 
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