[NuComer]

Hey guys, how much of an improvement will I see if I get the Xonar DG 5.1 vs my Realtek HD OnBoard?
 
Right now I'm using Samsons SR-850.
 
Thank you!.

 

[kalston]

No one can answer without knowing your onboard. It might be night and day and it might be the same. 
 
The DG is quite cheap though and you can be sure it won't be worse. Plus it has dolby headphones and an headphone amp so you would most likely be glad to have it even if it didn't improve SQ much. 

 

[NuComer]

Quote:

No one can answer without knowing your onboard. It might be night and day and it might be the same. 
 
The DG is quite cheap though and you can be sure it won't be worse. Plus it has dolby headphones and an headphone amp so you would most likely be glad to have it even if it didn't improve SQ much. 

 
Thanks for the response!. Sorry, I thought that the Realtek HD sound was a generic sound platform, the on I specifically have is the Realtek ALC888S. You said this had an amp, do you mean hardware-wise or just some software amp like the "mic-boost"?

 

[kalston]

An amp(lifier) is hardware by definition so yes the DG has something hardware-wise that your onboard doesn't have. 
 
And the same onboard can sound different from motherboard to motherboard, so it's not really easy to tell what yours is like. 
 

 

[NuComer]

Quote:

The DG has an amp hardware-wise, yes. 
 
And the same onboard can sound different from motherboard to motherboard, so it's not really easy to tell what yours is like. 
 

ok, thank you for everything man, I'm gonna pull the trigger just because of the amp, its dirt cheap too like you said.
 
Thanks again!