Will I notice a difference with a sound card?

[Donald1869]

Hey guys, I'm looking to improve the sound on my system and my mate swears by a dedicated integrated sound card. Now me personally I have never owned or used one before. The mobo that I have is GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-D3H Intel Z77. I mainly use my pc for gaming such as bf3, swtor, resi 6 etc. I also always use my turtle beach headphones for the gaming and also for movies or netflix etc. Will I notice a difference? Or would it be worth it? I do get a bit of interference using the on board but once audio kicks in I can't hear it. Thanks for the help

 

[Alex Jarvis]

I would get an add in soundcard. For precisely the reason you mentioned, interference...
I got clicks and buzzes over my headset because I used onboard audio, installed a £30 aftermarket card and it was lovely. Teamspeak quality also improved. Can't really comment as to the audio quality within game etc as I am not an audiophile and can't tell the difference.

 

[Paul Raver]

For sounds a after market card would be wise, besides gaming i tend to listen to music allot while working on my PC.
Took the effort to put in a Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme Audio card and is really nice sound output.
Did get a Fatal1ty headset and combined i got sweet TS sound.

(Sample Rate :96KHz, Bit Depth: 24bit)

 

[Astralv]

I am a sound engineer and have to use professional soundcards for audio/media production. There are sound cards for recording and sound cards for general computer users. On my new built system, with Asus motherboard, built in sound card sounds great. No interference, no clicking, no issues. For recording I have dedicated freestanding console, but when I am not recording and just playing music from the internet, the Asus motherboard audio is great. I do not have experience with Gygabite. The clicks as other poster described come from sampling rate/ bit resolution/buffer size settings that many onboard cards do not let you to configure. If you hear radio on a background, I would replace it. If you happy with your audio- I would not worry about it, because after you replace soundcard, there certain settings to change to make it work. Also it does not cost a lot to replace the sound card, you may experiment, but $40 sound card will not change much. If you want noticeable improvement, go with “musicians” cards that you can buy at www.sweetwater.com or www.guitarcenter.com

 

[Donald1869]

Hey guys and thanks for the replies. Im not really looking for unbelievable difference. I understand that would probably come with a price tag above my budget but just really looking to get rid of this interference. When im connected to on board the whining and cracking in my ears makes me damn suicidal. Now when audio kicks in i can't hear it but the moment the audio quietens, bam thereis is whining away! I uunplugged the green jack from on board and the interference stopped so I'm hoping a sound card will eliminate that and maybe slightly increase over all sound quality.

 

[Paul Raver]

I am a sound engineer and have to use professional soundcards for audio/media production. There are sound cards for recording and sound cards for general computer users. On my new built system, with Asus motherboard, built in sound card sounds great. No interference, no clicking, no issues. For recording I have dedicated freestanding console, but when I am not recording and just playing music from the internet, the Asus motherboard audio is great. I do not have experience with Gygabite. The clicks as other poster described come from sampling rate/ bit resolution/buffer size settings that many onboard cards do not let you to configure. If you hear radio on a background, I would replace it. If you happy with your audio- I would not worry about it, because after you replace soundcard, there certain settings to change to make it work. Also it does not cost a lot to replace the sound card, you may experiment, but $40 sound card will not change much. If you want noticeable improvement, go with “musicians” cards that you can buy at www.sweetwater.com or www.guitarcenter.com

That are some sweet sound cards listed on both sites.
And if i will ever be able to spend more on sound(card) then my whole rig i would.
Just checked my settings on my sound card and i forgot to adjust the sample rate.
The improvement is there music comes more to live with this card.

 

[manofchalk]

I wondered the same thing and ended up getting an ASUS Xonar DGX sound card for my Razer Carcharias headset. In terms of pure sound quality, I haven't really noticed a difference, but I'm no audiophile and headset isn't the best so I'm not surprised.
What is really good is the headphone amp, supplies more power to the headphones than integrated sound will. Before I had to have my volume wheel (and program volume) constantly maxed out to get a decent volume, now I have much greater control over that aspect.

Dont know whether this is due to lack of interference or the headphone amp, but when listening to very quiet parts its a lot clearer.