Sound cards. Any point to them anymore?

I was in Best Buy and noticed there are still Soundblaster Audigy's on the shelf. Some Soundblaster XE too, costs $120. Any point to them anymore? Any performance boost to be had or is your mobo sound all you need?

 

Definitely a performance boost in terms of what they can handle and the quality of sound they provide. I have a Claro Halo and it has additional jacks and optical out lines that I need for recording. I run my soundcard directly to a receiver to amplify my sound and it's sound is fucking incredible. Ultimately it depends on your needs and if you have some cash to throw around.

 

This is definitely one of those areas where it completely depends on the person... you won't see much of a performance boost from you computer itself with a sound card because of how fast modern processors are, but there might be small one from taking that load off the processor. But you will definitely hear a difference in audio quality from your mobo's built in audio. My advice is to research, research, and research if you feel your built in audio doesn't provide that "umph" your looking for.

 

It doens't use your processor. Most modern mobos have a build it sound card. The only issue with the built in sound card is that they are cheap so they are the lowest of the low for quality. If you are an audiophile, I would recommend it

 

Yes like I stated in my post motherboards come with built in audio cards. My information might be outdated but it is my understanding that because of limited space on a motherboard the audio cards lack all the key features of a dedicated audio card, and that includes self management, thus the computers processor still has to manage it. Again research is key because of changing tech and I haven't looked into this since I was maybe 17...6 years ago.

 

Hmmm, I am going to look into them. Only thing is that I really like the mic/speaker connections in the front of my case. I guess if I can some how route a soundcard to those that might be a deal maker or breaker.

Thanks for the info guys.

 

I read a little bit about those and like a some people already said, if you are an audiophile, you will hear a difference. There is a lot of frequency that are not boosted accordingly by the in-mobo sound card. Personnaly, I have the ThunderFX sound card that came with my motherboard. It is an external sound card that is of a good quality and the other interesting feature of an external sound card is that you can easily change where you put it or also change of computer easily.

 

I got a €30 headset directly plugged into my mobo and it´s doing just great. I´ve got a Philips SHP2k7 headphone here as well, but has no mic. It's sound is incredibly better, but I need to turn down the bass in the EQ or go nuts.

Surround sound is useless to me (no functioning right hearing), so for me it doesn't get any better.
If you're one of those guys who tends to hear every sample of his sound, you probably want something else. I can't hear the difference though :P

 

I know i am late on this but i did have a severe surge and it killed several parts of my motherboard including the jacks for the onboard sound card. I bought a sound card off of newegg for $30 and it works great with Windows 7.