Sound cards, onboard or not?

[Elijah]

I have two cards I'm thinking of reconfiguring this weekend, one is a c-media card and the other is an onboard via ac97 card. Which card is better, or is worth investing my short time with? which works better?

[gwenavirre]

I'm quite sure linux has via sound support. I'm not sure on the C-media. Why boher taking up the extra PCI slot?

[Elijah]

What I'm concerned about is the sound quality that I can get on either cards. They both sound the same, although in redhat's ac97 it seems to have some static noise or something. Not sure which card.