Is a soundcard still needed these days??

[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.

[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.

[SlipBall]

Originally Posted by 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.

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

[CaptainDoggles]

Originally Posted by AKA_Tenn

and the card has a really fast processor

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