Is a soundcard still needed these days??

[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.