Should I consider buying a dedicated sound card?

[Elendrill]

Hello I decided that its time to upgrade my headphones. After a lot of research I chose the Audio Technica AD700. A lot of people say that these provide the best positioning audio on the market and thats why I liked them. My only concern is that I the built in soundcard in my Asrock P67 Extreme4Gen3 is going to hold them back. Do you think that I need to get a Dedicated sound card or I will be just fine with the built in one?

 

[Epis]

I'm not sure how well the integrated sound card works on that particular motherboard. I would recommend a sound card just so you have peace of mind.

You will not be disappointed. Even a cheap <$50 sound card should improve sound quality quite a bit.

 

[haynesr07]

I feel like I give this answer out too much lol. But if you are sensitive to sound then yeah, a sound card will suffice for you.

Example of sound sensitivity: Goto youtube, find a song that has 480p, 720p, and 1080p and if you can hear the differences then you are, in fact, sensitive to sound.

 

[hubbardt]

Unfortunately I disagree with the previous posters
That motherboard has inbuilt 7.1 channel HD Audio and I don't see any reason for spending money on a sound card.

Years ago it was a good idea to buy a separate sound card as motherboards did not have on board sound or it was awful. These days the sound quality is very good and unless you are music mixing or a serious audiophile the on board is great.

 

[haynesr07]

Unfortunately I disagree with the previous posters
That motherboard has inbuilt 7.1 channel HD Audio and I don't see any reason for spending money on a sound card.

Years ago it was a good idea to buy a separate sound card as motherboards did not have on board sound or it was awful. These days the sound quality is very good and unless you are music mixing or a serious audiophile the on board is great.

Just because the card advertises "7.1" doesn't mean he's getting the best out of his headphones if he has a good pair of headphones (typically $100+).

So there's no necessity for a $100 sound card, sure; but I still feel like if music is important to him then yeah he should get the most out of his headphones.

 

[hubbardt]

Fair enough but before spending the money I would recommend playing a CD in a 'decent' hi-fi unit and listening with the headphones. Then put the same CD in your computer and listen to it to compare. If you can notice a difference then upgrade to the sound card 😉

 

[maddogfargo]

Research Audio Codecs for the on-board sound chips. Hardware Secrets has a great comparison article here:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Audio-Codec-Comparison-Table/520/2

Then look at the audio chipset used on the motherboard. Most higher quality boards will include high quality on-board audio.

For example...my Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 has a Realtek ALC889 audio chipset. It supports 8 channels, 24bits, 192KHz sample rate with 104db/108db input/output SNR. Those are excellent specs for listening to clear music on a set of HiFi headphones of through a HiFi home theatre system. You'd have to spend $80-$100 extra on a discrete sound card to match that.

In the past on-board audio was really cheap/bad. But that's no longer the case today.

You only need a good discrete sound card if your motherboard has a poor quality audio chipset on it.

So find out what your Asrock P67 Extreme4Gen3 has and you will know if you need a better card or not.

 

[gamerk316]

*sigh*

Listening to onboard audio, for music, is the rough equivalent of playing a game at 1024x768 @ low settings, graphically. Its flat, lifeless, doesn't separate audio channels well. This is true for ALL onboard chipsets. They focus on SnR for advertisement reasons, but their other qualities are lacking.

The issue is we have an entire generation who've grown up with .mp3, which is a HORRID audio format, and don't have soundtracks that really benefit from a decent soundcard. So, they purchase a $200 soundcard, still use a $10 set of headphones, use a lossy format like .mp3, and complain why they can't hear any improvement.

Even going to a $20 ASUS Xonar DG(X) is a huge leap in quality over onboard, assuming you have an audio track and headphones that can actually benefit.

 

[haynesr07]

*sigh*

Listening to onboard audio, for music, is the rough equivalent of playing a game at 1024x768 @ low settings, graphically. Its flat, lifeless, doesn't separate audio channels well. This is true for ALL onboard chipsets. They focus on SnR for advertisement reasons, but their other qualities are lacking.

The issue is we have an entire generation who've grown up with .mp3, which is a HORRID audio format, and don't have soundtracks that really benefit from a decent soundcard. So, they purchase a $200 soundcard, still use a $10 set of headphones, use a lossy format like .mp3, and complain why they can't hear any improvement.

Even going to a $20 ASUS Xonar DG(X) is a huge leap in quality over onboard, assuming you have an audio track and headphones that can actually benefit.

lol, what is your favorite audio format then?

 

[Seaclam]

I've had computers since my 8mhz 8088 back in the day and I've always had gaming machines going back to an Intel 33mhz machine. I have always had a Sound Blaster and have never had driver or card issues, with the exception of a fixable IRQ error way back then in the old days. I recently replaced my Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatality card with a Sound Blaster ZxR card, which as usual, gave me no driver issues and the card itself is a noticable sonic improvement over the other card. I will be receiving my Audio Engine 5+ speakers and their sub soon, which will replace my Corsair SP2500 setup. All that being said, if you've got the sensitivity in your ears, good speakers, and the cash.......DO NOT USE onboard audio because it SUCKS! I'm sure one day it won't as technology gets better and smaller, and although I've heard "on-board" audio get better and better over the years, it still is not there for my ears. It just all depends on your situation.......