On-board sound vs. Sound Card

0	If the on-board has all the inputs of the sound card, what's the benefit of buying a sound card? sound built hardware in onboard card asked Jan 01 '11 at 04:04 sulljason 2.4k●110●126●156 edited Jan 01 '11 at 04:11

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It depends on what your looking for. By putting a dedicated sound card in, you won't see another 15FPS in your games. (well, maybe if you game at 640x480...) You will probably get perhaps as much as 5% more. What you will get is the option for better sound effects. From what I have come to understand in another thread, onboard sound is limited to EAX effect 2 or 3 depending on the motherboard. If you get a creative soundcard, you could move up to version 4 or 5. This allows for better positioning of objects. (you can tell where people are easier...)

The thing that bothers me is people who think they need a sound card, so they spend £80 on a soundcard, but buy a 7600GT because thats all the money they have left. If they drop that soundcard, they would have another $80 to spend on the video card, and can move up to a x1900xt/7900GT. This allows for much better IQ, while still providing 5.1+ sound.

answered Jan 01 '11 at 05:56

DazOwen
5.9k●77●104●159

edited Jan 01 '11 at 05:56

So it handles the computations that the audio requires instead of the CPU?

(Jan 01 '11 at 06:36) sulljason

No. The upgraded graphics card will give you better FPS. You will still have reasonably good sound with the on-board, but not as good as a dedicated sound card. The graphics card doesn't handle the audio side of processing, but does take the pressure of the cpu to allow better cycles for audio.

(Jan 02 '11 at 06:01) Geenome

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