i am impressed with your knowledge.
i doff my hat
so the AC97 assigns its DSP stuff to the CPU, which one, something residing in the northbridge or the main cpu. if it does assign its stuff to the main cpu, then surely performance is gonna take a hit.
why do you say AC97 was a poor attempt, is it because AC97 voice quality is nothing compared to dolby 5.1. AC97 is also a 5.1 system right?
does it use wave synthesis or a look up table?
my mobo is a gigabyte 81875 ultra with integrated ac97, do you think is has 3 of Analog devices AD1885 CODECs.
i was planning to get an Audigy 2, do you think that i should go for one. At the moment i am living on my onboard sound card(AC97)