Is a soundcard still needed these days??

[Ironman69]

guys, i'm looking to upgrade to a new rig. Do I still need to invest into a new high dollar soundcard like the days of old?

[5./JG27.Farber]

Nope.

[SlipBall]

I say yes, its was like night and day for me, but my board is a little aged so unsure:)

[HessleReich]

You can easily do without, though always better to have one, for instance if you want to have 7.1 surround sound at highest quality possible then go for the card.

I have 3 machines and 2 dont have them, no noticable difference with everyday use.

[Jaws2002]

I like my X-fi Titanium HD. The music sounds great and there are benefits in games as well, as the sound is better and the card uses it's own memory modules to process sound. It helps with the frame rates.

[Hippy Druid]

If you're buying new hardware. A sound card is totally unnecessary. The CPU hit is negligible on modern hardware. Lots of motherboards support 5.1 surround.

Don't let the fan boys fool you. It's simply a waste of money.
Sound engineers have put countless hours into making the sounds in these games already sound awesome. The fancy soundcards are only applying filters and limiters to increase gain and reduce clicks and pops.
Stereo imaging, limiting, compression and all of these things can also be applied to your onboard sound.

Your speakers/headphones are much more important.

On the other hand if you plan on doing more that just playing games and listening to pre-recorded sounds, then a sound card is a must. A low latency ASIO 2.0 card will allow you to do amazing things in the sonic realm.
Onboard sound is not an option when it comes to recording and production, and even the cheapest of sound cards will allow you to do some pretty nice things with the right software.

But, what do you want to do with it?

[AKA_Tenn]

A good soundcard is important if you want more hardware...

i have the soundblaster x-fi fatal1y champion that has a front panel with full sized input/output jacks, optical-in/out, spdif ect... and the card has a really fast processor, so i can plug in my guitar and play with no noticeable lag/delay even using amplitube or guitar-rig pro

personally i'd cry if i had to go back to on-board..

since on-board sound is often software driven and relies on your CPU and ram to process the sound, rather than having their own dedicated SPU and ram, a dedicated card might give your machine a bit better performance too.

[CaptainDoggles]

Onboard sound is actually pretty good these days.

If you're buying a new motherboard, don't let anyone tell you you NEED an x-fi.

I have one, and enjoy some of the features, but unless you're listening to super high quality music on super high quality speakers, it's doubtful that you will notice a difference, especially since most modern onboard sound processors support 5.1 surround.

[CaptainDoggles]

and the card has a really fast processor

BTW the chip on the X-Fi runs at 400MHz.....

[AKA_Tenn]

BTW the chip on the X-Fi runs at 400MHz.....

and that's pretty damn fast for just audio.

but yea u don't need a dedicated soundcard unless you're doing your own recording, or want to do something the onboard won't let you.

[ATAG_Bliss]

Well, the biggest thing is the removal of DirectSound. Ever since the inception of vista, an XFI is worthless. But back when you had DirectSound technology and drivers specifically designed to run through hardware only instead of the Open_AL crap that must go through windows/microsoft there's really no need for it.

The only thing I can say is play a direct 3d game on XP with an X-Fi (on your new fangled motherboards with good onboard) and then play that same game on XP with on board sound and you'll see why millions of people had the X-Fi. With Open_AL being the only thing rocking now, it simply doesn't matter.

The only reason I still have XP installed is not because some of my old favorite games won't run on W7, it's simply because they sound so fricking awful in Open_Al that is the microsoft's crucifix to direct sound. Just like anything, microsoft had the put their grubby hands on it and make it simply mediocre across the board.

Quite simply, the reason an X-Fi doesn't do much anymore is simply because it can't go around window's very own sound architecture since Vista and beyond.

[AKA_Tenn]

yea and it sucks balls... bout the only thing x-fi is good for now is ASIO and the optical-in to use ur PC as a 5.1/7.1 amp (i use it for my playstation 3) tho you gotta buy the dolby digital connect pack thing for like... 3$ from the creative site.

but also the front panel is awesome... i'd buy it just for that.
http://apcmag.com/images/apc/news/Creative-Fatal1ty-ChampionSeries_p.jpg

[HessleReich]

WOW, that controller/remote looks tiny.

[Dano]

I can tell you right now that even my cheap XonarDG is head and shoulders above the onboard Realtek sound on my motherboard.

[Kankkis]

I'll use Logitech G35 USB headset, no need for soundcard and no even need for MB soundchipset(Disabled it from bios) and i'm happy.

Kankkis

[SlipBall]

Well, the biggest thing is the removal of DirectSound. Ever since the inception of vista, an XFI is worthless. But back when you had DirectSound technology and drivers specifically designed to run through hardware only instead of the Open_AL crap that must go through windows/microsoft there's really no need for it.

The only thing I can say is play a direct 3d game on XP with an X-Fi (on your new fangled motherboards with good onboard) and then play that same game on XP with on board sound and you'll see why millions of people had the X-Fi. With Open_AL being the only thing rocking now, it simply doesn't matter.

The only reason I still have XP installed is not because some of my old favorite games won't run on W7, it's simply because they sound so fricking awful in Open_Al that is the microsoft's crucifix to direct sound. Just like anything, microsoft had the put their grubby hands on it and make it simply mediocre across the board.

Quite simply, the reason an X-Fi doesn't do much anymore is simply because it can't go around window's very own sound architecture since Vista and beyond.


When I as researching a way to get my SB card to sound as good as it did in XP. I remember reading somewhere that Win 7 professional version had a true XP mode, with a check box for direct sound. Allowing for full use and quality as in XP...so maybe a possibility for you to research

[albx]

A good card is the Asus xonar dx/xd, changed my old creative with this and I can say it's on another level... awesome card

http://uk.asus.com/Multimedia/Audio_Cards/Xonar_DX/

[Liz Lemon]

I'm speaking from personal experience here;

Stay away from creative x-fi. Or really any creative sound card. The x-fi I have gave me nothing but headaches in win 7 64bit. The drivers for the thing were non-existent when win 7 came out. And when the drivers did come out they were buggy and gave me bsods. I actually removed the card from my system a few months back as the drivers wer still causing problems every now and then all these years later.

Onboard audio is fine if you aren't an audiophile and have a set of mediocre speakers. If you are looking at a soundcard in this day and age though, then make sure you have a nice set of headphones or speakers to go with it. If you don't then you should be buying them before you buy a new soundcard.

[Buchon]

In short :

No, but it add features.

[Baron]

In even shorter:

No.



:)

[SlipBall]

How new of a board are we talking here?...SB sounds great, and on-board sounds are terrible, on my 7 year old Giga board

[Al Capwn]

It honestly comes down to you. As others have already mentioned, onboard has definitely come a long way, but it's still by no means the same as having a dedicated sound card. However, many people are 100% happy with their modern (and even old school) onboard sound and that's awesome, I'm jealous actually; it would save me a lot of money!

Personally I have not met anyone that I have convinced to install a sound card to not notice a difference right away in the quality of audio. Although of course you need a quality pair of speakers/headphones, if you just have some run of the mill desktop speakers there's only so much they can do.

As far as game performance increase, I would say with most modern games, and with the power of modern multicore processors; it's going to be negligible as with games such as BFBC2 or BF3 the sound is actually processed on one of the cpu cores, even if you have a dedicated card, and then it's fed through the card.

Before I got my ProFire I had an Audigy 2 which out did all of my onboard audio processors from when I bought it back in 2002 until about 2010. My brother also runs an X-fi gamer, although I would have to say you may want to avoid Creative because of their drivers, they are by far the worst I've ever seen and it doesn't seem like they have ever really improved. Although I've heard nothing but good things about Asus and their Xonar line.

And remember, if audio is really important to you don't let anyone tell you spending a lot on quality equipment is a 'waste of money'. Nothing is a waste of money if you get enjoyment/use out of it. Nothing is more important to me than audio, and to me even these BX8a's don't cut it, once I get some money I'll be getting a nice set of Focals :)

Good luck!

Edit: Just an update, in my comparison between my Audigy 2 and onboard audio processors, I was not using any special audio effects or 'enhancements', especially not 'crystalizer' or the 3D speaker effect, just a pure audio comparison.

[CWMV]

Now I understand that without a good set of speakers/headphones you won't really hear a difference, but what level of quality equipment are we talking for the headphones? What quantifies a "good" set?

I personally have a set of JVC HA-RX700's, bought them based on their reviews.
Would this level of quality (good or bad, Im not really an audiophile) lend itslef to a separate sound card?

Is there something that can be used as a standard?

[Al Capwn]

Now I understand that without a good set of speakers/headphones you won't really hear a difference, but what level of quality equipment are we talking for the headphones? What quantifies a "good" set?

I personally have a set of JVC HA-RX700's, bought them based on their reviews.
Would this level of quality (good or bad, Im not really an audiophile) lend itslef to a separate sound card?

Is there something that can be used as a standard?

That's a very difficulty thing to quantify, but I would say that you would tell the difference between onboard and dedicated with those headphones. Headphones are much easier to make 'sound good' since the drivers are located right outside your ear and so they don't suffer from audio cancellation/reflections/etc.

http://www.hometracked.com/2008/01/25/quick-home-studio-monitor-tests/

This website has some useful audio tests you can use and you may be surprised by what frequencies seem to disappear when going through the sweep.

I would say anything $40 or over is probably going to be a decent enough set of headphones (or possibly speakers). However, on what can be used as a 'standard' I think you'll get as many different (and probably equally valid) responses since there are just a staggering number of brands/types, many overlooked, and some over hyped. Personally, I say you can't go wrong with a pair of Grado SR 60i, they go for about $80, or Sennheiser HD 280's (newegg has em on sale for $99) or pretty much anything Denon or Sennheiser (that's $40 or more).

[CWMV]

I considered all of those actually, the Grado and Sennheiser's especially.

[Al Capwn]

I considered all of those actually, the Grado and Sennheiser's especially.

Grado makes some incredible headphones, I've always wanted the RS1i model, maybe someday :)