Do I really need a dedicated sound card?

icedbullet

icedbullet

icedbullet

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Hello everyone

I enjoy listening to a lot of music and playing games in my spare time. I have a ABIT QUADGT motherboard with onboard Realtek 7.1 sound. It sounds good to me but I have been reading around other peoples threads who swear by dedicated sound cards.

I do have a Creative sound blaster live usb sound card I used to use on an old laptop. I have installed that on my machine and tbh I cant really hear a difference.

I'm using Creative Gigaworks T20 speakers with a pair of Dre Beats Tour plugged into them. If I invested in a good internal dedicated sound card will this improve the sound quality of my music given my current setup?
 
IMO you only need one now when you're running big hifi speakers with an amp, because you need decent speakers to hear the difference.

Modern on-board is fine for PC speakers if you ask me.
 
If the only factor is stereo sound quality then an external DAC is probably a better buy. For me dedicated soundcards are more about features than sound quality, though generally the sound quality will be noticably better.
 
Depends on what your hooking it upto.....

Resonable quality 5.1 Pc speaker setup, then no, a dedicated soundcard wont sound any better through that sort of setup...

Kick ass home cinema 7.1 with proper amp and proper posistiong of speakers, then yes..dedicated soundcard will come into its own.
 
If you are happy with what you have, just forget about it. You wont miss what you haven't heard.

I've got a decent amp and a good stereo speaker setup, so wanting to get the most out of it, I got myself a nice soundcard, I'm in the market for an external DAC now. Upgrading your audio gear can be a real joy but it can also be extremely expensive.
 
Thats why I recently got my Teufel Concept B 200 kit, I was thinking about getting an amp, speakers and soundcard/DAC, but decided in the end it'd cost too much and knowing me I'd never stop and just keep upgrading it. :P
 
Maybe its just because I'm an audiophile but a good soundcard uplifts the experience of sound on a PC. Whether it be a game, film or sound production the improvement is amazing!
 
just to magnify what most people have said, i've always recommended a sound card over onboard, and i personally have used an Audigy2 plat Ex for years with my Sony STRDE595, with 5.1 Wharfdale complete set (analog btw, not digital.) - and I hear a massive difference, not only with positional expertise - yet clarity, high low and mid range sounds, vocals, instruments and all have more of an oomph :p. Yet unless you have high quality amp and speakers, i seriously doubt there would be any issues with using a Realtek 7.1 onboard. I had to recently, when my Audigy was playing up :S..
 
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I think what Muel and Cooper said is about right, from my experience. With most PC speakers, onboard audio is fine. PC speakers for the most part are not capable of producing the sound quality a good amplifier and speakers can provide, so a dedicated sound card may be wasted. With a nice amplifier and speakers, a sound card is capable of sounds onboard audio cannot produce.

I just compared my X-Fi Xtreme Music against my Realtek ALC888, using my Audiolab amp and Wharfedale speakers. The Realtek onboard audio is very capable to a point, but once you listen to the X-Fi, you can hear where the onboard audio is lacking. Cymbals for etc, sound lifeless. There is more life in the sound when using the X-Fi.

The T20's are pretty good speakers though for what they are, so you may hear a difference, you may not. People have different experiences using PC speakers, some hear a difference, some do not. It would be a shame for you to get a sound card with the hope of hearing a significant difference, only for you find that you hear no noticeable difference. Maybe it's best to do what Cutshaw said, if you are happy with what you have, stick with it. What you never heard, you cannot miss.
 
Onboard is terrible compared to a dedicated card; Obviously though, if you have poor speakers (PC speakers or a cheap headset) then you're not going to get as much of a difference.
 
Cooper said:
Depends on what your hooking it upto.....

Resonable quality 5.1 Pc speaker setup, then no, a dedicated soundcard wont sound any better through that sort of setup...

Kick ass home cinema 7.1 with proper amp and proper posistiong of speakers, then yes..dedicated soundcard will come into its own.
Click to expand...

What if you just connect the audio via optical out from your PC to the Amp? No difference I'd imagine as the audio should be processed by the Amp not PC?
 
for me: digital is digital. :P Onboard wins (and i dont have room for a soundcard anymore, but tbh it sounds the same as it used to!)
 
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