Audigy 2ZS or Realtek ALC892?

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WhyYouLoveMe

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I'm in the midst of a Sandy Bridge build and I wonder if the Audigy 2ZS is worthy to slap onto a MSI P67A-GD65 board with Realtek ALC892 onboard audio using Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate. I'm using Audio-Technica ATH-A900 cans for headphones and Logitech X-540 5.1 speakers for... speakers.

What ya think? Stick with the onboard or go with the 2ZS?
 
latching on to this thread to see user-feedback.

i'm considering the same thing with my X-fi Xtreme Gamer vs the on-board Realtek ALC892 in Windows 7. seems like there is very little difference for a non-audiophile user like myself. i'm using HD280 PRO headphones.
 
Porter_ said:
latching on to this thread to see user-feedback.

i'm considering the same thing with my X-fi Xtreme Gamer vs the on-board Realtek ALC892 in Windows 7. seems like there is very little difference for a non-audiophile user like myself. i'm using HD280 PRO headphones.
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same boat here but with an audigy 4 pro...main thing for me is that creatives drivers are HORRIBLE, at least for the audigy series with windows 7 x64
 
I have recently purchased a new motherboard, I believe it has that Realtek audio chip mentioned, and I also use an original Creative XFI extreme audio. I find this Realtek chip to be far better than the old one I had on my Gigabyte 69 series board, and can actually tell very little difference between the Realtek and my XFI. Im no super audiophile though, but I could really tell the quality improvement. I use a Plantronics Gamecon 377 headset and an old Logitech 5.1 system.
 
I'm gonna start with the onboard audio just as a test. My last build was an XP machine so it's not exactly apples to apples. My cans are high-end and my speakers mid but I'm no audiophile, either. It's easy enough to disable the onboard and slap in that 2ZS if the onboard happens to suck. I shall keep this thread updated with my results.
 
WhyYouLoveMe said:
I'm gonna start with the onboard audio just as a test. My last build was an XP machine so it's not exactly apples to apples. My cans are high-end and my speakers mid but I'm no audiophile, either. It's easy enough to disable the onboard and slap in that 2ZS if the onboard happens to suck. I shall keep this thread updated with my results.
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i'm curious about what you'll find. i predict you'll see very little difference in quality, if any at all. also the ALC892 software has an equalizer if you need to tweak the settings. i have to adjust the bass a little to add some warmth to my HD280 PRO's (had to do this with the X-fi as well)
 
So far the verdict is no difference in the 5.1 setup. The range is good, no hissing or background noise and it sounds great. I haven't tried the cans so I'll update again after some testing with those. Unless there is a noticeable quality difference with the headphones I'm sticking with the onboard audio.
 
WhyYouLoveMe said:
So far the verdict is no difference in the 5.1 setup. The range is good, no hissing or background noise and it sounds great. I haven't tried the cans so I'll update again after some testing with those. Unless there is a noticeable quality difference with the headphones I'm sticking with the onboard audio.
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good to know! post back when you've tested your headphones - which is a more stringent test IMO.
 
If it weren't for the Realtek Onboard not letting my mic work properly, I'd be using it. To use Vent/TS/mic in general, I have to unplug my mic, plug it back in and HOPE, and 9 times outta 10 that doesn't even work. I popped my old Audigy 2 in and haven't looked back yet.
 
Ok that took a little longer that anticipated, but anyway...

I'm no audiophile but I couldn't tell any difference with this onboard sound and my Audigy 2ZS. I had to tweak the EQ a bit to get the bass I wanted through the cans but it sounds just as lovely and full as it did on my ZS under WinXP. I tried a few of my favorite songs and some COD4. The positioning was spot on in-game so I'm stoked! Now what to do with this ZS...
 
Creative really shot themselves in the foot with their years of driver disasters. They couldnt have timed it worse with Win7 and onboard audio getting much better. These days I have an X-Fi Titanium Fatality on Win7 and the current drivers actually seem pretty good. It sure took them long enough.
 
Isn't an Audigy 2ZS a PCMCIA-based audio card? I used to have one of those, used it with a Dell Inspiron 1450 but it had the same audio glitches as the onboard audio while the notebook was plugged into AC power. The optical out was nice, but proved not worth it to me because creative tends to force digital outputs to whatever standard they consider to be "High-quality" at the time, (In this case 24/96) and I couldn't sync that with my pro audio gear.

So far the only systems I've had that came with on-board audio that was free of interference, static, etc. were 3 Apple computers (a G5 tower and two MacBook Pros) and my most recent Gigabyte mobo with i7 CPU.

I'd say give the onboard audio an audition. listen to music, games, videos, with your speakers and your headphones.

personally, I may still install my old creative Live! Platinum 5.1 into my i7 machine, mainly for front panel headphone jack with a hardware volume control. (How's that for old school?)
 
To the best of my knowledge, those older cards will not work with more than 2 gigs of ram. One solution for it though is to look for KXdrivers for the card.
 
EarlKeim said:
To the best of my knowledge, those older cards will not work with more than 2 gigs of ram. One solution for it though is to look for KXdrivers for the card.
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That would be incorrect. I used an Audigy 2 ZS on a Windows 7 Ultra x64 system with 8 gigs of RAM and it worked perfectly.

I will always suggest a discrete sound card over integrated.
 
canon.tk said:
I will always suggest a discrete sound card over integrated.
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Can you expand on that? I've always leaned toward a dedicated sound card in the past but with the incredible CPU power nowadays and the onboard audio chips getting better, is it worth it?
 
ASUS Xonar DG or DS. I got the DG for $20AR and it is amazing compared to my onboard ACL888.
 
WhyYouLoveMe said:
Can you expand on that? I've always leaned toward a dedicated sound card in the past but with the incredible CPU power nowadays and the onboard audio chips getting better, is it worth it?
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A lot of it comes down to personal pref, what you will tolerate or what you're used to.

I've always had a sound card. From the Ad Lib to Sounblaster 16, AWE32, AWE64, Live!, Audigy, and now X-Fi. Back when I built my first Core 2 Duo system I decided not to use a discrete sound card and use the on board since I read post after post of people saying how they are just as good. It lasted 4 days. The sound was horrible in games, mostly the positioning.

I can't speak from current experience since I haven't giving on board a try since then. You said you can't tell the difference, maybe the chipsets are better now.

Maybe with things like surround sound in games, over just stereo music, I would register that discrete would win.

The ALC889 on my P8P67 Deluxe supports DTS surround, if yours supports that I would suggest using that for gaming. I'm currently using the Dolby Digital surround on my X-Fi and it works well.
 
I ran an Audigy 2zs for years in my rig, and I loved it. However, windows 7 support is bad and Creative drivers are awful. I would avoid Creative at all costs, especially with a card as old as the 2zs. Honestly, I'd stick with the onboard. It's what I use now and I've had no issues.
 
If you don't hear noise (pops, clicks, hard drives) in your onboard then there's no reason to use anything else.
 
Those of you trashing the Creative cards under windows 7 or Vista, or XP must either have a faulty card or have issues building computers.

I have been using Creative cards for the past 18 years and have NEVER had any of these crazy issues that are brought up.

I did have one motherboard that shared an IRQ with way too much stuff and that was causing problems, but once I switched PCI slots so the Creative card had it's own IRQ, everything worked perfectly - this was on an old NF4 Ultra based board.

And.. if you have a Live! based card you can extract the Audigy drivers and manually update to them. I have done this myself and it works fine.

Pretty sure they will work with the X-Fi drivers as well using the same extraction and manual update method.

And the Audigy cards can use the X-Fi drivers as I have done that myself as well.

There is nothing at all wrong with Win7 and Creative drivers. The very first one or two beta Win7 driver releases didn't support everything that they did in XP and Vista.. but once they got everything sorted out it has been just fine.
 
i've never had issues with creative drivers either. i've used my X-fi XtremeGamer in Windows XP 32bit, Vista 32bit, Vista 64bit, and Win7 64bit.
 
I think the biggest issue most people have with the Creative drivers of late are they are just vanilla. They have removed a lot of the functionality of their cards in both Vista and Win7, making them generic and not much different than the built-in audio on motherboards.

I agree, I haven't had any problems with Creative sounds cards under both Vista & Win7 but I certainly did not have all the functionality the cards offered.

And let's not forget they are not well-known for their aftermarket support. Far too many other companies offer way better support once you've purchased their cards. Creative is certainly on the bottom end of aftermarket support.
 
Creative X-fi Titanium Fatality Champion user here, coming from an onboard Realtek audio chipset (889A), on a Gigabyte board.
In gaming, there is a difference (Creative sounds better). Watching HD movies or other 5.1 content...not all that different. There are more features to tweak (good thing) in the Creative control panel...though some things don't work as well, such as a microphone (talk about a pain in the ass).
I used the optical out on both the Realtek and Creative...overall, the Realtek was easier to setup and get running. Additionally, I could control the volume from the PC with the Realtek...not so with the Creative. The optical out on the Creative is at a fixed signal strength.
Driver issues with Creative? Not really...first install didn't take, though a repeat solved the issue. Additionally, they do their best to try and confuse the living shit out of you by recommending crap to DL that you don't need or even want. Lastly, the Creative Console Launcher used to start with windows and run minimized in the system tray...now for whatever reason, it never starts with Windows, and refuses to even go to the system tray. Considering I got everything tweaked just the way I want it, I'm not gonna bother with a reinstall.
Front panel feature is useless, and the lack of a dedicated Mic input on the back of the card makes things more troublesome then they need to be. Mic quality on the Creative is TERRIBLE, and EAX features do not work for me. Additionally the 3 audio modes (Gaming, Audio Creation, and Entertainment) add to the frustration. Entertainment mode sounds the best for daily use, but Gaming mode enables EAX...so its a loose loose situation, as the lack of the control panel in the system tray means switching and forth is a PITA. The button on the front panel only enables game mode....how worthless lol.
Anyways, knock on wood. Aside from a couple nagging issues, the card works...and I'm happy with that. Definately NOT worth $200 though. Not even worth the sale price of $170. I was a chump, and got the extra front panel....not even remotely worth it. If I had payed $100 for all of this, I probably would have been much more satisfied. As it was, it cost more then my ENTIRE motherboard, and is only marginally better then the onboard sound.

But there is a reason I dumped the Realtek. And that's because it was not supported with BF:BC2, and I couldn't even play the game with Realtek drivers installed. I happen to like that game very much, so I had to find a new sound card. First couple months I had the Realtek, it worked flawlessly with that game...then something happened, and it caused a million different issues. So, even Realtek isn't immune to driver issues. Though I blame the shitty game and all its bugs...
Who knows, there may have been a patch for it...but I wasn't gonna wait around.


For the curious, I have Logitech Z-5500, and Sennheiser HD-280 Pro's. Win7 64bit, 8gb Ram.
 
I'm either eternally positive or just have a horrible memory. Whilst doing some in-case cleaning I decided to pop my ZS back in and give it a whirl. Err... the quality is easily superior to the onboard audio. Maybe I didn't fiddle my way through the endless audio options of the Realtek software. Maybe I had ponies and puffy clouds on my mind from the euphoria after a new build. Whatever it was, the ZS sounds so much better I almost fell out of my chair upon the first test of some of my favorite music. I then had to fire up some BF:BC2 and was once again blown away by the clarity and punch of the ZS audio.

I completely strike my previous Realtek praises from the record!!

BurntToast said:
If you don't notice the different then your hearing must be damaged or you are using some cheap gaming headphones.
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I'll believe the former, sir. Read my first post.
 
Does anyone know the specs on the 892? It seems to be a mystery, not present on the Realtek website. I've had the ALC889 or 889a on a few Gigabyte boards and it's quite good. Good enough for me to ditch the last SB Live card I had several years back. Lots of the new boards have the 892 chip. The 889 has a S/N ratio of over 100, but would love to know how the 892 compares at least on paper.
 
canon.tk said:
A lot of it comes down to personal pref, what you will tolerate or what you're used to.
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+1 :D It honestly depends on what you will be doing and how much you care about audio.

tdowning said:
Isn't an Audigy 2ZS a PCMCIA-based audio card?
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I believe there was a PCMCIA edition, but its also a PCI card as well.


As far as the OP goes, I have a Win 7 X64 build right now and I just ditched my Audigy 2 ZS Platinum after 6.5 wonderful years of usage. Unfortunately, due to my need for recording right now, and the fact that the recording was atrocious with that card in win 7 x64 (it would literally sound like you were in a wind tunnel, no matter what input you used), I was forced to ditch it. The sound playback was perfectly fine, but as I want to record and do more online gaming, the need for decent sound input grew. Now, if you were to plug something in and play (lets say a guitar amp...a mic output on the amp so I don't blow out the card for those wondering), over the speakers was fine. Same if I connected a mic to the mic port and spoke. But if I tried to use the mic in game (Ventrillo, etc...) or tried to record with a line-in (Goldwave, Audacity, etc...), that's when it sounds like garbage. I just got a Titanium HD from a nice deal off newegg and haven't looked back.
 
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