The future of soundcards?

[Klo]

When I was building my current computer back in 2007 (it has had a few upgrades since then), I remember the Creative X-fi range had relativity recently come out, and then the Asus Sonar range.

For some reason I was thinking about sound cards today, and was wondering what is future, as from what I've seen there hasn't been a big new release for a while now.

Have we reached the peak of sound technology, as onboard is catching up with dedicated sound cards, and can match the quality in average pc speakers?

 

[Nemesis379]

For me personally, as newer motherboards come out the onboard sound is becoming better, ive never really had a reason to buy a sound card.

 

[Marsman]

Tough one to answer really. If people stopped buying sound cards, there would be no reason for any particular company to develop new models. That isn't to say the current line up cannot be improved upon though. We have come to a time where more and more people are investing more into what they are seeing, than what they are hearing. People deem onboard audio good enough, yet want 1080p and more, monitors. The more people that don't give too much care about audio quality, the less chance there is that new ranges of sound cards will be released.

 

[Guest2]

Have we reached the peak of sound technology

Doubt it, tech will always get better

...as onboard is catching up with dedicated sound cards, and can match the quality in average pc speakers?

Average pc speaker quality is gash.

What I would like to see is PCs with onboard cards that can match high quality soundcards and DACs with outputs for dedicated amps and good quality speakers

 

[PhillyDee]

For me personally, as newer motherboards come out the onboard sound is becoming better, ive never really had a reason to buy a sound card.

I have thought this for a long time. However, I have just purchased an Asus Xonar D2X, and it has to be said, there is much less hiss, and none of the very occasional capacitor whine I was hearing from the onboard. Plus, it seems a shame to have so many expansion slots and not use them

 

[Klo]

Average pc speaker quality is gash.

What I would like to see is PCs with onboard cards that can match high quality soundcards and DACs with outputs for dedicated amps and good quality speakers

Thats my point though, unlike graphics cards where the power has an obvious effect on the game (graphics, frame rates etc), sound doesn't in any way. A person with a crappy monitor will still notice when their frame rates are low, or some new graphics feature is available. However , someone with crappy speakers probably won't notice if the sound quality isn't amazing, as the speakers simply won't show all the nuances of the sound. A bad monitor however won't suddenly stop display MSAA (for example).

 

[AWPC]

Onboard is getting much better especially when you get the Dolby Theatre Realtek chipset but the Asus Xonar are pretty amazing the difference is still there & if you love Bluray & PC gaming it becomes obvious the dedicated soundcard has plenty of life left in it

Dedicated soundcards also consume less CPU cycles than onboard.

 

[Telltale Boy]

Thats my point though, unlike graphics cards where the power has an obvious effect on the game (graphics, frame rates etc), sound doesn't in any way. A person with a crappy monitor will still notice when their frame rates are low, or some new graphics feature is available. However , someone with crappy speakers probably won't notice if the sound quality isn't amazing, as the speakers simply won't show all the nuances of the sound. A bad monitor however won't suddenly stop display MSAA (for example).

But this also works the other way. While upgrading my graphics card would increase the frame rates in a game, this is unnoticeable with so many games today as they run smoothly on 3 year-old cards, so it doesn't really increase my enjoyment of a game. However the jump from onbaord to a xonar dg made a massive difference to the immersiveness of the sound, and therefore making games much more enjoyable. A graphics card upgrade might be necessary if you're struggling to run games, but apart from that it doesn't really increase enjoyment whereas a sound upgrade really does.

 

[MikeHunt79]

When I was building my current computer back in 2007 (it has had a few upgrades since then), I remember the Creative X-fi range had relativity recently come out, and then the Asus Sonar range.

For some reason I was thinking about sound cards today, and was wondering what is future, as from what I've seen there hasn't been a big new release for a while now.

Have we reached the peak of sound technology, as onboard is catching up with dedicated sound cards, and can match the quality in average pc speakers?

It's the other way around, average pc speakers are the weakest link here...

What I would like to see is PCs with onboard cards that can match high quality soundcards and DACs with outputs for dedicated amps and good quality speakers

Just use TOSLINK or SPDIF with external DACs, problem solved.