Are Sound Cards worth it?

[Zurtex]

I'm currently in the process of planning a new computer to construct in about 2 months time. I'm curious of whether it's worth buying a sound card?

I do enjoy listening to music a little on the computer, plus watching movies and playing games. I have a pretty nice 2.1 Speaker set-up and I do hear a bit of crackling when I ramp the volume up and I don't feel it's the speakers because they're the clearest I've ever had.

Would a sound card eliminate that problem? Are there many other reasons to bother with a sound card?

Any advise or links to read would be much appreciated.

 

[akugami]

No. If you were an audiophile you'd never be satisfied with sound coming from a computer. So let's cross that off of the list. If you were an average user, you'll probably be satisfied with the onboard HD audio that's on today's motherboards.

I can tell the difference when using something like a Creative X-Fi over my onboard audio which uses a solution from Realtek. I run my sound through a Logitech Z-5500. However, I just don't bother. It's one of those cases where I'm ok with the onboard sound. For instances where I really want to enjoy a movie or music, I go to my 50" HDTV and sound system.

Obviously this is a highly subjective issue and for other people, they'd say that there is no way in hell they'd be satisfied with onboard audio. So I'd say most people would be satisfied with onboard audio but it's a YMMV thing.

 

[corkyg]

Agree. It really depends on the quality of the on board audio and motherboard. Cranking up the volume on sound cards or on board is never a good idea because it introduces distortion. For greater loudness without distortion, you need more amplifier power. My solution is LINE OUT from the onboard port to a good external audio system and connect the speakers to it.

 

[DBissett]

I'm currently in the process of planning a new computer to construct in about 2 months time. I'm curious of whether it's worth buying a sound card?

I do enjoy listening to music a little on the computer, plus watching movies and playing games. I have a pretty nice 2.1 Speaker set-up and I do hear a bit of crackling when I ramp the volume up and I don't feel it's the speakers because they're the clearest I've ever had.

Would a sound card eliminate that problem? Are there many other reasons to bother with a sound card?

Any advise or links to read would be much appreciated.

A good solution to the sound question is to get on Ebay and buy a receiver...there are a kazillion for sale in any configuration you desire at prices from near zero to a lot. Hook to that and run those clear speakers all you want.

 

[shaolin95]

A sound card is a must for me. No way I would take crappy onboard audio but of course this varies depending on the user.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I don't know if it's the fact that I have onboard sound, but I find when I play games after a while the sound becomes ridiculously scratchy. I've been wanting to buy a decent sound card so I can see if I get better results.

 

[Yuriman]

The positional/surround effects on X-Fi's are generally much better than onboard, and cards with a built-in amp (Xonar, Forte) really do sound much better on a nice set of 'cans.

Onboard audio is by no means bad, though. It's much better than it was 10 years ago.

 

[Vertigo0176]

Is it true that onboard sound requires more cpu than a dedicated card?

 

[NesuD]

Is it true that onboard sound requires more cpu than a dedicated card?

Yea typically it is true but with that being said systems today have more that enough spare cycles to handle onboard sound solution requirements with little impact on your other applications.

I however do prefer a discrete soundcard for my audio over onboard audio. The catch is that to realize a significant improvement over onboard sound you need to spend a chunk of change to get it. My opinion is that generally if you aren't prepared to spend $100 or more for a soundcard you should just stick with onboard audio. Usually until you surpass the $50 price range you are often just buying the equivilent of onboard audio anyway.

 

[Lemon law]

For me, on board audio meets all my needs, but I cannot and should not impose my choice on others.

But in an era when computers can interface with home theater and so many other things, some people will always find new uses for audio and video cards. Which keeps Moore's law alive as the unit price drops for onboard and external devices.

 

[0roo0roo]

gotta love it when posters ask a question without stating the most basic info. for all you know he's playing music on his 20 dollar speakers

rarely is the sound card the limiting factor. you can spend hundreds at the very least on your speakers before soundcard becomes a major limiting factor. spending on speakers has far greater margin of improvement for the money than the sound card.

if its crackling as the knob is turned, those are dirty pots. just blame your volume control knob. it happens.

 

[Zurtex]

gotta love it when posters ask a question without stating the most basic info. for all you know he's playing music on his 20 dollar speakers

rarely is the sound card the limiting factor. you can spend hundreds at the very least on your speakers before soundcard becomes a major limiting factor. spending on speakers has far greater margin of improvement for the money than the sound card.

if its crackling as the knob is turned, those are dirty pots. just blame your volume control knob. it happens.

My 2.1 speaker set-up was about $80 and all the reviews I could find said they were the best speakers for their price range and all the customer reviews I could find agreed on this (I do tons of research before buying anything, hence this post).

The volume knob is in itself a separate piece to the speakers and pretty hefty and well made looking.

That said, before I bought these I never placed any importance on sound quality and afterwards I became suitably impressed with the difference, I may well upgrade them again some time. So I don't mind getting a very wide range of opinions.

 

[zerocool84]

My 2.1 speaker set-up was about $80 and all the reviews I could find said they were the best speakers for their price range and all the customer reviews I could find agreed on this (I do tons of research before buying anything, hence this post).

The volume knob is in itself a separate piece to the speakers and pretty hefty and well made looking.

That said, before I bought these I never placed any importance on sound quality and afterwards I became suitably impressed with the difference, I may well upgrade them again some time. So I don't mind getting a very wide range of opinions.

Well most motherboards you buy now-a-days have good audio on them. Buy it, listen to it, and see if you like it. If you don't then you purchase a sound card.

 

[Tsavo]

People listen to music.

Audiophiles listen to stereos...and buy monster cables for them so all the electrons are lined up as they cross the gold plated ameometric coalition hyperbolic copper barrier that size all the protons and makes sure all the neutrons are wearing the correct outer wear.

This is all so simple folks.

 

[0roo0roo]

My 2.1 speaker set-up was about $80 and all the reviews I could find said they were the best speakers for their price range and all the customer reviews I could find agreed on this (I do tons of research before buying anything, hence this post).

The volume knob is in itself a separate piece to the speakers and pretty hefty and well made looking.

That said, before I bought these I never placed any importance on sound quality and afterwards I became suitably impressed with the difference, I may well upgrade them again some time. So I don't mind getting a very wide range of opinions.

well there is a limit what 80 dollars can do. there is basically no way your sound card limits the quality of those speakers. even 150 dollar computer speakers are not that great. they are better than 20 dollar speakers but well..thats no standard at all. speaker techs been worked out for quite a while for the most part. for decent mid range you need sizable midrange cones, 3.5" or so atleast, something most computer speakers fail to provide. never mind a big enough sub or even tweeters at times. subwoofer+reciever+bookshelf speakers or such will have better sound but will cost a bit more over all, but you do get what you pay for.

 

[ultimatebob]

People listen to music.

Audiophiles listen to stereos...and buy monster cables for them so all the electrons are lined up as they cross the gold plated ameometric coalition hyperbolic copper barrier that size all the protons and makes sure all the neutrons are wearing the correct outer wear.

This is all so simple folks.

Heh... they also buy $1,500 power cables that are thick as a tree branch, with special stands to raise them off of the floor to prevent static interference from the carpet.

Fools and their money...

 

[BigDaddyD]

monster cables....pwned.

 

[konakona]

For games that primarily focus on sound effects (gunshots, explosions, etc) I am not too particular about how they sound, so onboard audio should suffice for me. Between my two computers, I use the onboard on main computer for gaming / video. The secondary has a AV710 - external dac that gets used for music or games with BGM emphasis.

I have used some heavily modded EMU-1212M and some decent cards based on envy24, and I feel usb / coax / spdif external dac is way to go for music. That is, if you have good enough associated gear to fully reap the benefit of a better source. I have a ppx3 + bunch of headphones (hd650, d7000, ad2000, k701, ms1) on the dac.

 

[0roo0roo]

well games like fps benefit most from a quality headset. even the best surround is going to have issues with room interaction and volume being impractical for trying to get every last bit of audio queue to figure out where the enemy is.

 

[konakona]

I know where you are coming from but I am just not a **seriously** competitive player. even when I play competitive type of FPS, I usually a type that would go out there and have fun not lurk in the corner listening for people's footsteps. FPS is only a minor part of all the games I play anyway.

Not saying either you or me are right or wrong about it, just pointing out people have different needs and priorities. My above post was my two cents on music playback, as the OP has a 2.1 speaker which probably isn't ideal for competitive fps anyway.

 

[Googer]

If you have cheap headphones costing less than $220 or powered speakers less than $500 in price, you wont likely notice the difference. Wear a pair of Mid to high end Beyerdynamic, Sennheiser, Grado, or AKG headphones and you will quickly become very picky as to which soundcard you listen to.

If your looking for additional perfomrance, hardware based soundcards like X-Fi and XONAR still provide up to a 10% boost in 3d performance. However the only caveat is that support for hardware based audio is slowly fading away and those performance gains in the future will be less and less untill there is none.

 

[PCboy]

Edit: Aha, he's still here. Wait for YOyoYOhowsDAjello to give his thoughts on your situation. The audio guru will help you answer this extremely vague question!

 

[StrangerGuy]

My take on this is onboard sound quality has vastly improved over the years but they are still pretty hit-and-miss depending on the mobo itself. My Socket 939 board Realtek HD 880 sounds better than my X-Fi Xtremegamer music-wise (without EQ on both). On ther other hand the onboard my 965P board absolutely sucks.

BTW onboard or not try to keep the line output as low as possible and let the speaker amp do the job instead.

 

[terentenet]

Onboard soundcards has improved but they still can't catch the better sound cards out there. I have used many soundcards until I found what I like.
All sound cards sound different, there is not a single best one.
I have used Audigy and X-Fi sound cards from creative, then Xonar D2 from Asus, now I use a Essence ST and an Auzentech HTHD 7.1.
For music and movies I use the Essence ST output digital to a external DAC (Corda StageDAC), through an headphone amp (Corda Opera Analog) into the Denon AH-D5000 headphones. It's a good synergy going on there, the Denon's are alive in this combo.
For gaming I use the Auzen card which is based on X-Fi chip. Auzen -> Corda Opera Analog and Denon D5000.

 

[RXD]

Hey, I was just wondering how much better the sound quality is on a sound card than onboard sound. I am somewhat of an audiophile and can appreciate good sound quality when I hear it. I'm not one of these people who fall for the Bose nonsense, I know real sound quality when I hear it. After knowing this do you think I will appreciate having a good sound card? I've never really heard sound from one before.