My sound card is pretty close to my graphics card. If i remove the sound card will i get better performance in games because its more spacey and cooler inside the case?
I doubt you'll see a significant speed increase except if it's that hot that the GPU is throttling to reduce heat. I don't think that's common except if the heat is extreme. On the other hand cooler components last longer. Maybe find software that can keep an eye on GPU temp.
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I removed my sound card and the performance is the same. Does it mean my performance is normal with everyone else with the same specs as me? I am playing skyrim and starcraft 2 and i have fraps turned on in the background to check my fps while gaming and it feels as if I dip to like 20-30s when im moving around or just randomly. It happens in starcraft 2 too I would sometimes get like 30 fps. Is that normal?
You need to post your specs for us to help you better. There are so many different combinations that its impossible to tell us if your performance is amazing, good, or poor. But, the fact that the performance didnt change means that your card likely didnt get that hot with the sound card there, thus not making a difference.
If you are worried about heat problems fit a blower next to the graphics card; removing the soundcard will do next to nothing apart from silencing your games of course. Blowers = http://www.scan.co.uk/search.aspx?q=blower
Actually for starcrarft 2 my minimum fps rose significantly. My specs are 6870 with amd phenom2 p55 3.2 no oc. I also heard that people are having fps problems iwht skyrim it might just be that. But i think my computers alot cooler now. Because i held my hand above the top computer case while i was gaming and there was no heat from there. It used to have pretty hot air coming up.
I dont think so haha. This was my first computer that I built and I dont know what i was thinking -_-; They sound the same and it costed me 50 dollars only to make me more problems.
The sound cards that come on-board are actually quite good. You really only need a seperate sound card if you plan on doing specialized work or need the connections for the newest sound systems.
Yea I was being stubborn thinking I was atleast gona hear some slight difference for my electornic dubstep shyt in my itunes. Should have just bought a better keyboard or something.
Unless the sound card is almost completely blocking all air to the video card, removing it would technically slow you down as all that audio processing is now being sent back to the cpu.
For vid card temps, really anything below 75c *When Gaming* I would not worry about.
If you don't have anything monotoring that I'd suggest Everest Ultimate.
Unless the sound card is almost completely blocking all air to the video card, removing it would technically slow you down as all that audio processing is now being sent back to the cpu.
For vid card temps, really anything below 75c *When Gaming* I would not worry about.
If you don't have anything monotoring that I'd suggest Everest Ultimate.
Not a justification unless you are already resource starved and/or have the speaker system to support multiple channels above stereo.
Depending on which sound card you purchassed, removing it and its drivers can either actually slow down your gaming system or speed it up. There are a few sound cards that can increase the load on the CPU, Creative's X-FI XtremeAudio (Model:SB0790) is a perfect example of just such a thing. The X-FI functions are emulated by software the card does not actually have an X-FI chip.
As for frame rates in Skyrim, a lot of ATI(AMD) users are hurting because they have taken so long in getting drivers released that support it properly. I believe that Cat: 11-11 is the first version of the driver that includes optimizations for Skyrim. You should update to that driver or newer.
Actually, it is only cheap sound cards that do things pretty much the same way the on-board sound does that have little purpose.
The mid-range sound cards actually do take some processing off the CPU and do that themselves.
But yes -- it isnt like the old days where no sound card meant your computer could barely beep.
----
As for video cards, the most important thing to do with those is to air out your case with a bellows or a can of air every month or two to get the dust out. If you havent done this in 6+ months expect a 20 degree improvement.
If heat is causing you to slow down, you would really notice it. When a CPU or GPU throttles down while playing a game, it's usually extremely noticeable: like from 60FPS to 4FPS instantly. There are some outliers (like GW, which you could run throttled down on a calculator and it would still play well), but for the most part, if your computer is overheating to the point that it's affecting the speed, you would really tell.
So, in and of itself, just running your computer cooler ~shouldn't~ speed it up, unless your overheating it to the point of almost but not quite breaking it. And if you are, then removing the sound card probably isn't the best fix, it's probably lack of fans, dust/dirt buildup, or improper heat sink mounting that is the real culprit.
So that would be my answer to your original question.
That said, a discrete sound card really won't have much impact on your overall system. Some sound card drivers can be very bloaty (Creative has some bad versions out there), but for the most part, all the various sound cards should be within a couple of percent of each other with regard to gaming performance. Sure, an accelerated one may take some load off your CPU, but modern computers the CPU's aren't horribly overburdened in the first place. And sure, one manufacturer may have more optimized drivers than another, but most systems have enough RAM that you could run 20 sound cards and not run out of, or even scratch, available system resources.
If you like the way it sounds, there's no harm in having it. That said, most motherboards have adequate on-board sound (usually a RealTek or SoundMAX 5.1 or 7.1 audio system with analog and digital outputs). They are good enough you won't notice any difference with MP3's on standard computer speakers, but if your audiophile level playing lossless stuff on a nice DAC, or need a lot of inputs and outputs for recording or mixing, you'd want something with a little more juice to it.
I ran furmark and tropicals. For furmark the temperature was much cooler i think. I ran it for 5 minutes and it didn't go over 72 degrees and it used to get hotter faster than that. In tropicals my minimuim frame rate went from 32 to 39 :O. The sound card was really close to the video card and I think the whole space underneath the video had heat gathering up with not much space so I think that was the reason.
Catalyst 11.11a is the best to get at the moment. I had no issues with Skyrim on 11.9 either though, but 11.11a has a slight performance improvement for Skyrim.
Btw, Catalyst version numbers are in the yy.mm format - 11.9 was released 9/2011, 11.11 was 11/2011, etc. And they are updated every month.
Comments
I doubt you'll see a significant speed increase except if it's that hot that the GPU is throttling to reduce heat. I don't think that's common except if the heat is extreme. On the other hand cooler components last longer. Maybe find software that can keep an eye on GPU temp.
I removed my sound card and the performance is the same. Does it mean my performance is normal with everyone else with the same specs as me? I am playing skyrim and starcraft 2 and i have fraps turned on in the background to check my fps while gaming and it feels as if I dip to like 20-30s when im moving around or just randomly. It happens in starcraft 2 too I would sometimes get like 30 fps. Is that normal?
You need to post your specs for us to help you better. There are so many different combinations that its impossible to tell us if your performance is amazing, good, or poor. But, the fact that the performance didnt change means that your card likely didnt get that hot with the sound card there, thus not making a difference.
It highly depends on the rest of your hardware. 30 fps isn't bad for an older machine. Also, fraps will lower your fps (it used to anyway).
If you are worried about heat problems fit a blower next to the graphics card; removing the soundcard will do next to nothing apart from silencing your games of course. Blowers = http://www.scan.co.uk/search.aspx?q=blower
Actually for starcrarft 2 my minimum fps rose significantly. My specs are 6870 with amd phenom2 p55 3.2 no oc. I also heard that people are having fps problems iwht skyrim it might just be that. But i think my computers alot cooler now. Because i held my hand above the top computer case while i was gaming and there was no heat from there. It used to have pretty hot air coming up.
People still buy sound cards?
I dont think so haha. This was my first computer that I built and I dont know what i was thinking -_-; They sound the same and it costed me 50 dollars only to make me more problems.
The sound cards that come on-board are actually quite good. You really only need a seperate sound card if you plan on doing specialized work or need the connections for the newest sound systems.
Yea I was being stubborn thinking I was atleast gona hear some slight difference for my electornic dubstep shyt in my itunes. Should have just bought a better keyboard or something.
Unless the sound card is almost completely blocking all air to the video card, removing it would technically slow you down as all that audio processing is now being sent back to the cpu.
For vid card temps, really anything below 75c *When Gaming* I would not worry about.
If you don't have anything monotoring that I'd suggest Everest Ultimate.
Not a justification unless you are already resource starved and/or have the speaker system to support multiple channels above stereo.
Depending on which sound card you purchassed, removing it and its drivers can either actually slow down your gaming system or speed it up. There are a few sound cards that can increase the load on the CPU, Creative's X-FI XtremeAudio (Model:SB0790) is a perfect example of just such a thing. The X-FI functions are emulated by software the card does not actually have an X-FI chip.
As for frame rates in Skyrim, a lot of ATI(AMD) users are hurting because they have taken so long in getting drivers released that support it properly. I believe that Cat: 11-11 is the first version of the driver that includes optimizations for Skyrim. You should update to that driver or newer.
Actually, it is only cheap sound cards that do things pretty much the same way the on-board sound does that have little purpose.
The mid-range sound cards actually do take some processing off the CPU and do that themselves.
But yes -- it isnt like the old days where no sound card meant your computer could barely beep.
----
As for video cards, the most important thing to do with those is to air out your case with a bellows or a can of air every month or two to get the dust out. If you havent done this in 6+ months expect a 20 degree improvement.
If heat is causing you to slow down, you would really notice it. When a CPU or GPU throttles down while playing a game, it's usually extremely noticeable: like from 60FPS to 4FPS instantly. There are some outliers (like GW, which you could run throttled down on a calculator and it would still play well), but for the most part, if your computer is overheating to the point that it's affecting the speed, you would really tell.
So, in and of itself, just running your computer cooler ~shouldn't~ speed it up, unless your overheating it to the point of almost but not quite breaking it. And if you are, then removing the sound card probably isn't the best fix, it's probably lack of fans, dust/dirt buildup, or improper heat sink mounting that is the real culprit.
So that would be my answer to your original question.
That said, a discrete sound card really won't have much impact on your overall system. Some sound card drivers can be very bloaty (Creative has some bad versions out there), but for the most part, all the various sound cards should be within a couple of percent of each other with regard to gaming performance. Sure, an accelerated one may take some load off your CPU, but modern computers the CPU's aren't horribly overburdened in the first place. And sure, one manufacturer may have more optimized drivers than another, but most systems have enough RAM that you could run 20 sound cards and not run out of, or even scratch, available system resources.
If you like the way it sounds, there's no harm in having it. That said, most motherboards have adequate on-board sound (usually a RealTek or SoundMAX 5.1 or 7.1 audio system with analog and digital outputs). They are good enough you won't notice any difference with MP3's on standard computer speakers, but if your audiophile level playing lossless stuff on a nice DAC, or need a lot of inputs and outputs for recording or mixing, you'd want something with a little more juice to it.
I ran furmark and tropicals. For furmark the temperature was much cooler i think. I ran it for 5 minutes and it didn't go over 72 degrees and it used to get hotter faster than that. In tropicals my minimuim frame rate went from 32 to 39 :O. The sound card was really close to the video card and I think the whole space underneath the video had heat gathering up with not much space so I think that was the reason.
Also, where do i download catalyst 11.11? I have 11.9 and it was updated like 3 weeks ago.
actually my last update was a month ago.
http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/crossfirex-app-profiles.aspx
Is this the one that i need?
http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/Catalyst1111aperformance.aspx
Catalyst 11.11a is the best to get at the moment. I had no issues with Skyrim on 11.9 either though, but 11.11a has a slight performance improvement for Skyrim.
Btw, Catalyst version numbers are in the yy.mm format - 11.9 was released 9/2011, 11.11 was 11/2011, etc. And they are updated every month.