ALC898 no longer listed on Realtek website

Dude, the guy said he was choosing between two motherboards based on the Realtek chip each comes with. The post itself was not exactly on-topic with the OP. A suggestion was given to avoid making such a decision. What's so wrong with that?

So we should avoid throwing out such suggestions because we can only talk about why the 898 was removed from the website? That's been solved already. You need to learn to read.

$30 is not going to break anyone and the dude has the choice whether to spend $30 (!!) on a soundcard or not. Nobody is forcing anyone to buy anything.

You know what it feels like to us when someone is on Realtek? It feels like he's still on a single core Pentium 4, pushing a Titan.

Everybody can hear a difference. Some MASSIVE setups are being thrown here and onboard sound is still being used. Fantastic balanced systems, don't you think?

And of course you can't hear a difference, you'd never hear a difference with $30 headphones. And I'm sorry because you're missing out on a LOT.

 

Well, if he did go for the Gigabyte, he would have to buy a PCI-E version of a sound card. No point getting it for legacy PCI over the better audio only to use that slot with a sound card! I guess it really depends on what you want to get out of the system. Supposedly the ALC1150 is superior to the ALC898, but it won't make up the difference to a dedicated sound card.

That said, if you did get dedicated card over the ALC1150 board you would have to get a 'decentish' one to make it worthwhile, so the cheapest I would get is the Xonar DSX (I wouldn't think the DG would be worth it). There haven't really been any reviews on the comparison between ALC1150 and a cheap soundcard (like the Xonas DG). People on here will claim the dedicated is always better, regardless of knowing what the ALC1150 sounds like.

 

Not true, even a DG will destroy any Realtek out there. I bought one not so long ago for £18, because my first DG died. Had to use onboard sound for a few days, it just sounded lifeless, dull and boring. I've since upgraded to a Z, but I know for a fact that even a DG will sound much better than onboard sound. If paired with half decent speakers/headphones of course.

 

The Xonar DG has a decent little headphone AMP that simply isn't included with any onboard. For headphone use I'd actually recommend it above a DSX for that reason alone. You'd be surprised at how much of a difference it can make over the 898 - headphone amp aside. I don't think anyone at this point genuinely believes that Realtek is going to pump out anything decent. After all, the masses don't give a crap about audio and that's the market it's aimed at. I'd say that the problem isn't so much with people not knowing what the new Realtek sounds like, but rather with people who use low end audio claiming to know better than those with actual experience over a broad spectrum.

 

I was referring to the ALC1150, not the ALC898 Supposedly it is much improved.

Also the person was asking about the ALC898 on the Gigabyte board vs ALC1150 on the Asus board. One of the things in favour of the Gigabyte board was the legacy PCI slot. No point getting that for the legacy PCI slot only to fill that slot with a PCI sound card!

 

How much could they improve it for a $20 price difference between two motherboards (one that has it and one that doesn't)? That $20 is definitely not going completely towards the audio section. Add to that the tiny PCB space it occupies, and the market it caters to, etc... If you have a chef that always cooks bad food, do you expect him to come out with a good dish eventually?

Same goes for MP3 players vs. phones. The most expensive phones cannot compete with MP3 players that are much cheaper, have better DACs, DAC implementation, and headphone amps.

Specialized product vs. general-usage everything goes product.

 

Of course, I should have been more specific. A DG or DGX, both are of a similar price and pretty much the same card. As I aso mentioned in a past post, you cannot expect Realtek to make a breakthrough in sound (And it would take a major breakthrough for them) to the point they're on par with a DG, let alone beating it. For the price of a dinner out I do not understand why people aren't willing to at least try. But then, this argument is starting to go into Onboard vs Dedicated, and there's a sticky for that.

 

Personally, I would never use the onboard audio chip as a reason to buy this mobo over that one. In my opinion you are best off to leave is disabled and get a higher need audio source such as soundcard or external DAC. Your money though so it is ultimately your choice.

 

Apart from of course the new wave of Z87 mobos, many of which are including 1150, shielded components and headphone amps.

I should be in a better position to comment in a day or so when I build my 4770k with MSI Z87 GD65.
As there is no PCI slot for my Xonar DG, i'll forced to use the onboard 1150 (shielded & with OPA1625 amp) so will be able to compare.

Dont know how much difference i'll notice on my Corsair HS1A headset though.