My main PC uses an Asus A8N-SLI Premium motherboard which has built in audio using a Realtek ALC850 codec. I've had no complaints about the quality of the audio when listening to music or other things. However I can normally hear some audio interference during games, especially if using headphones.
I think this is PSU based interference because the system needs to draw a lot more power during gaming for the graphics card at the same time as quite intensive processing and ram access. You can hear the HD access via interference through headphones for example. But this isn't the case with audio when not playing games. I can listen to audio perfectly without any interference while working.
I've got a spare Creative Audigy 1 soundcard. It is currently in a system I still use, but that system is by local test server, so it doesn't need to have good audio, just be able to make a noise for alerts and stuff, and it has onboard audio for that.
But the question is, will switching to using the Audigy 1 in the system fix the interference problem? Or is it going to continue due to some grounding issue in the case and hardware somewhere?
My other thinking is that the Audigy will also free up some of the main CPU processing time as it won't have to be running the onboard audio.
So should I disable the onboard audio and install the Audigy 1 soundcard? Or stick with the onboard sound and try to fix the interference?