What is an integrated sound card

Integrated sound card and the load card, generally have a soft sound card and a hard sound card points. Here the soft and hard points, refers to whether the integrated sound card has the main processing chip. Integrated soft sound card, there is no main processing chip, only a decoding chip, through the operation of the CPU, to replace the sound card main processing chip role. and integrated hard sound card, with the main processing chip, a lot of sound processing work will no longer need to participate in the CPU.

1, AC ' 97

The full name of AC ' 97 is audio CODEC ' 97. This is an audio circuit system standard developed and developed by a number of vendors such as Intel and Yamaha. It's not a real sound card kind, it's just a standard. Currently, the latest version has reached 2.3. Now the market can see the sound card, most of the codec are in line with the AC ' 97 standard. Manufacturers are also accustomed to using codec standards to measure sound cards, so many motherboard products, regardless of the type of sound card chips or sound card types, are called AC ' 97 sound card.

2, HD Audio

HD Audio is the abbreviation for high Definition Audio (high-fidelity audio). Formerly known as Azalia, is Intel and Dolby (Dolby) company launched a new generation of audio specifications. At present, mainly is the Intel 915/925 series Chip Group's ICH6 series South Bridge chip uses.

HD Audio is designed to replace the current popular AC ' 97 audio specification, with AC ' 97 has many similarities, to some extent, can be said to be AC ' 97 of the enhanced version, but not compatible with the AC ' 97 standard. Based on AC ' 97, it offers a new connection bus that supports higher-quality audio and more features. Similar to the AC ' 97 audio solution, HD Audio is also a soft and hard mix of audio specifications, integrated into the ICH6 chip (excluding the codec portion). Compared with the current AC ' 97, HD audio has the characteristics of large data transmission bandwidth, high accuracy of audio playback, support for multi-channel array microphone audio input, lower CPU occupancy rate, and general features of the underlying driver.

Particularly interesting is the HD Audio has a very user-friendly design, HD Audio support device awareness and interface definition function, that is, all input and output interface, can automatically induction device access and give hints, and the function of each interface can be set at will. This feature not only allows you to determine which ports have device inserts, but also to define functionality for the interface. For example, the user will be the mic into the audio output interface, HD audio can detect the interface has a device connection, and can automatically detect the type of device, the interface defined as the MIC input interface, change the original interface properties. From this point of view, the user connected speakers, headphones and mic as simple as connecting USB devices, in the control panel a few mouse clicks, you can complete the switch interface. Even the complex multi-channel speakers, novice users can do Plug and play.

3, integrated sound card advantages and disadvantages

Because the integrated soft sound card does not have the main processing chip of the sound card, when processing the audio data, will occupy some CPU resources, in the CPU frequency is not too high, will slightly affect the system performance. At present CPU frequency already uses GHz to calculate, but the audio data processing quantity has not increased much, compared to the previous CPU, CPU resource occupancy rate has been greatly reduced, the influence to the system performance is also negligible, almost can ignore.

The problem of sound quality is also a big drawback of onboard soft sound card. More prominent is that the signal-to-noise is relatively low. In fact, this problem is not because the integrated soft sound card for audio processing defects caused, mainly because the motherboard manufacturer design onboard sound card wiring unreasonable, as well as the materials used to work such as too cost-saving caused. And for the hard sound card on board, then basically does not exist above two questions, its performance basically can close and achieves the general independent sound card, can satisfy the ordinary family user's need completely.

The biggest advantage of integrated sound card is price/performance. And with the sound card driver's continuous improvement, the motherboard manufacturer's design ability enhancement, as well as the on-board sound card chip performance enhancement and the price drop, the onboard sound card more and more obtains the user's approval.

The disadvantage of onboard sound card is the advantage of independent sound card. The disadvantage of independent sound card, but also is the advantages of onboard sound card. Independent sound card from dozens of yuan to thousands of yuan, has a variety of grades, from the performance, integrated sound card is not lost to the low-end of the independent sound card. In the price/performance ratio, the integrated sound card also takes advantage. In the low-end market, in the pursuit of cost-effective users, integrated sound card is a good choice.