no sound card=cpu works harder?

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hondasaurus

Member
hey, i was reading this whole subforum and i think i came across ppl saying that w/o a sound card your processor works harder. i can dig that theoretically. is it the same for any integrated devices? should we go as far to use pci slots for usb ports?
 
i dont know about that.. but if it does, in fact, work harder without a sound card, then you might want to install another fan..

how did you come up with that theory?
 
having the USB ports onboard integrated vs a PCI card, I can't see the CPU doing any less work I see it doing more work having the ports on a PCI bus.
onboard there still has to be a chipset to process the USB port which in turn get passed to the CPU which is probably a more streamlined approach. On PCI bus the north or south bridge I forget which needs to handle the PCI bus USB device pass it to the CPU. It's most likely more efficent using an integrated solution.
 
i dont know about that.. but if it does, in fact, work harder without a sound card, then you might want to install another fan..

how did you come up with that theory?

i saw it on one of the pages in here, and i read them all. i'll try and find again.
 
having the USB ports onboard integrated vs a PCI card, I can't see the CPU doing any less work I see it doing more work having the ports on a PCI bus.
onboard there still has to be a chipset to process the USB port which in turn get passed to the CPU which is probably a more streamlined approach. On PCI bus the north or south bridge I forget which needs to handle the PCI bus USB device pass it to the CPU. It's most likely more efficent using an integrated solution.

agreed.
 
manufactures and others claim that because without a sound card, the processor has to do all the decoding and all that great stuff because the info it sent to the chipset and then sent to the processor and back. however, with a sound card, the chip in the sound card will do all the work.. same thought as a video card, but video cards are more dramatic because programing for the cpu and gpu is a whole another story.. maybe until Intel Larrabee or AMD Fusion in the next year or two.

anyway, now a days, its basically moot because the of the dual core, quad core processor and $10 GB RAM and the much improved quality of onboard sound. only reason to get a sound card is if you can or care to tell the difference in audio quality or want more outputs/inputs.

lastly, if anyone tells you the killer LAN card works, tell them Macs can never get viruses.
 
thx all for input. i think it came up on a pc building thread. i have an integrated and regular sound card. i never bother to put the sound card in. my pc is 6 yrs old, single core. athlon 1.6g so it sounds like this all can still affect me. i can build and install my own pc but my knowledge on the actual technical workings is limited.
before the flames: my games still work great, lil behind, doing cs:source right now. 1gb ram, 7600/7800 gs agp card w/ my agp overclocked.
 
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