How important is a sound card these days?

[WhiteLotus]

Well I'm looking at getting a new motherboard, and of course they all come with some sort of sound 7.1 setup or whatever. How do most modern (read with in the last year) fair when it comes to onboard sound? Would I notice a difference against my Xonar D2/PM?

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

Unfortunately, the answer is another question. How good is your physical sound system?

Low end 2 speaker and bass system generally don't require a discrete sound card. More substantial systems definitely benefit from a discrete card. There is no hard and fast rule as to whether your computer really needs a new sound card.

Personally, sound cards are expensive (decent ones at least). Unless you've got some serious money sunk into your sound system, the money would be better spent on a graphics card, RAM, or HDD upgrade.

 

[erocker]

With onboard sound it's always a crap-shoot. My advice would be to try using it and see if you like it. If not, buy a sound card. I never liked onboard sound until I got my Crosshair IV and I must say I'm quite impressed with the sound on this board.

 

[Imhoteps]

To be honest, nowadays` integrated chips are quite fine for casual/average use. Discrete soundcard is a little bit better for serious gaming and semi-professional sound-jobs, but for sure - it isn`t necessary in principle. I`d consider to save some cash for other needs.

 

[MilkyWay]

Integrated is fine for casual use, its beats the low end cards these days for sure. Depends if you have an awesome speaker set up then you need to get a sound card. Maybe if you have like expensive headphones you may want to get a sound card too.

My VIA onboard does fine with the logitech x540s i have in 5.1 for games.

 

[Easy Rhino]

how important is a sound card these days?

depends on how important good sound is too you.

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

Digital or analog? Analog, a soundcard is a necessity. Digital and all you'll miss is maybe a few fps from open al offloading and some pretty software.

 

[Crap Daddy]

My road to a soundcard was a no-choice but get one. The onboard produced hiss and background noise in 5.1 mode for the Roccat Kave headset for my son so I bought an Asus Xonar D1. It sounds as it should be through the amp and then speakers. Now I don't even remember how the onboard sound was like. On the new machine I transfered the Xonar and didn't even bother to test the onboard. If you use anything less than, say, 50$ speakers connected directly to the board you definitely don't need a soundcard.

 

[mad1394]

Well I'm looking at getting a new motherboard, and of course they all come with some sort of sound 7.1 setup or whatever. How do most modern (read with in the last year) fair when it comes to onboard sound? Would I notice a difference against my Xonar D2/PM?

Well if your going to try out on board sound make sure you try the best, most of the new motherboards have the realtek 892 chipset but the 889 is actually better ( you can check out specs on the realtek website).

 

[WhiteLotus]

Well I have logitechs Z5500, though in all honesty I doubt I have them running at the full potential, for a start I only have the two front satellite speakers running (i'm moving around a lot thanks to uni)