I am useing the onboard soundstorm "ac97" and so far I have not much good to say about it, people raving over it do not know audio *LOL* the controls are annoying and I cannot get the spdif input to work for the dvd. I hands down prefere the onboard cmi audio in my kt400.... makes me miss it a bit. Oh yeah I have 1 80mm on the main sink on the 9700 and then the led window fan blows right on the card sideways as well for cooling, I can honestly say all the sinks are now cool to the touch! did not do to much for overclocking but makes me feel better that the card is not a firehazard.