Elysian
1000+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2011
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You can get functional, decent sound out of something as simple as a typical Realtek 889 through DirectSound on WMP, for any application you want from watching DVDs and YouTube, to listening to music and playing computer games. Most people won't notice much difference between onboard audio vs. a $100 sound card.
You can't get anything close to decent playback on Skyrim, Battlefield 3, etc., using an IGP, unless you're happy with low res and detail turned down to low, and even then that only goes for Starcraft 2 and last-gen games.
The relative performance levels, in comparison to discrete components, is not remotely ballpark. Onboard audio was horrific 10 years ago, but the gap's been narrowed significantly since then.
AMD A8-3850 Llano - IGP vs Discrete (performance is much better than Sandy Bridge IGP)
http://www.techspot.com/review/418-amd-a8-3850-apu/page12.html
You can't get anything close to decent playback on Skyrim, Battlefield 3, etc., using an IGP, unless you're happy with low res and detail turned down to low, and even then that only goes for Starcraft 2 and last-gen games.
The relative performance levels, in comparison to discrete components, is not remotely ballpark. Onboard audio was horrific 10 years ago, but the gap's been narrowed significantly since then.
AMD A8-3850 Llano - IGP vs Discrete (performance is much better than Sandy Bridge IGP)
http://www.techspot.com/review/418-amd-a8-3850-apu/page12.html