Are sound cards worth it

[DaddySvit]

Hello i am upgrading my rig to a 14900k and Asus ROG STRIX Z690-E GAMING WIFI, i also have a saroubd sound and am wonderibg are audio cards for the best quality and are there still problems with noise and jitter. 

[jaslion]

Nope its all digital and audio add in cards have been basically marketing bullshit for the last 15+ years

[Tigerleon]

13 minutes ago, DaddySvit said:

Hello i am upgrading my rig to a 14900k and Asus ROG STRIX Z690-E GAMING WIFI, i also have a saroubd sound and am wonderibg are audio cards for the best quality and are there still problems with noise and jitter. 

They are better if they offer more amplification and cleaner sound.

[da na]

In Windows Vista, Microsoft killed off the ability for sound cards to actually perform hardware acceleration, so soundcards nowadays are useful only if you want a nicer DAC than what the motherboard provides. 

[Motifator]

This is an extremely broad topic, the basic users told you above...

me? Well, I could tell you to buy an enormous rack sound card, stick it up to an on the fly clock switcher... 

you know how I roll when it comes to audio hardware... le lol.

[Godlygamer23]

In most situations, no. There are some key areas where they CAN be useful, depending on what you purchase, but by and large? No.

[manikyath]

for "regular home use" all they do is essentially supply more inputs/outputs. there's some cases where they may support modes or standards your onboard doesnt support, or are able to drive very high impedance headphones.. but that's kind of a case of "when you need it, you know you need it. when you wonder, you dont."

[Cocococo]

I'd just get a USB DAC rather than a sound card if i were you, if you have USB-C IO (and are in the US) then Apple USB-C dongle is all you really need for any wired headphones you might want to plug in. 

[Psittac]

Typically solutions these day's are external, IE USB dac and amp or dac/amp combo.  And there can be huge gains with them in the correct situation.  Otherwise onboard audio is pretty competent these days.

 

Are you trying to do surround sound?  It's difficult to decipher your original post.  Typically PC is stereo so 2.0 and surround would be through a home theater setup which would bypass a soundcard and onboard audio.

[Motifator]

Theoretically speaking, at least to me, the typical solution has been stereo for a LONG time.

I almost always exclusively run stereo...

only do mono when I'm playing music with an 8 inch Headrush PA. 5.1 is overrated.

[JollyJamma]

On 3/10/2024 at 11:37 PM, DaddySvit said:

Hello i am upgrading my rig to a 14900k and Asus ROG STRIX Z690-E GAMING WIFI, i also have a saroubd sound and am wonderibg are audio cards for the best quality and are there still problems with noise and jitter. 

When you say sound card, do you mean the pci-e sound cards or a USB DAC? 
 

I use an Ifi Zen v2 USB DAC and it does improve the sound quality over onboard chipset motherboard audio. 
 

pci-e audio cards have largely fallen away because people want to reserve the pci-e lanes for other things like NVME drive expansion cards and maybe 10gig LAN cards. 
 

They would improve upon the onboard audio but aren’t as necessary as they were in the 2000s. 
 

Back in the day, you were L33T if you had an SLi setup and a ASUS Xonar Essence STX audio card for your 5.1 surround sound setup and you could run Crysis. 
 

Then you had 5.1 and even 7.1 surround sound headsets which were a mixed bag of cool and a bit flawed. 
 

These days, onboard audio is fine and virtual surround sound using software solutions such as Dolby Atmos can turn any stereo headset on an ok audio setup for even competitive gaming. 
 

I’d still invest in a USB DAC but I wouldn’t spend thousands of $£€’s on it. 

[Psittac]

17 hours ago, JollyJamma said:

These days, onboard audio is fine and virtual surround sound using software solutions such as Dolby Atmos can turn any stereo headset on an ok audio setup for even competitive gaming. 

I agree to a point, as an ethos I don't like anything between me and the sound such as Atmos or virtual surround.  However that's just my situation and my use case.  I don't e-sports or even FPS for that matter.  I think that something between your statement and @Motifator is where I stand.  Pure stereo with no gadgetry.  But again I have no clue what....

 

On 3/10/2024 at 11:46 PM, Motifator said:

only do mono when I'm playing music with an 8 inch Headrush PA. 5.1 is overrated.

means.  I do know that back 7+ years ago when I ran a HT setup and a TV there was almost nothing that took advantage of having true 5.1 and given that it is very very niche that people would have that AND be a hardcore gamer, I don't see it being developed anytime soon.

 

Fake surround may have it's merit's, but I wouldn't know what they are.

[Heats with Nvidia]

On 3/10/2024 at 9:45 PM, jaslion said:

Nope its all digital and audio add in cards have been basically marketing bullshit for the last 15+ years

Analog, wired headsets and speakers are still the norm. So no, its not all digital. And the quality of that D/A conversion matters.

Otherwise, you are mostly correct. If the mainboard manufacturer didn`t see the audio part as an afterthought or did something wrong (which surprisingly still happens), onboard audio nowadays is pretty good. A good external interface is still an upgrade. But not nearly as much, as it used to be.

 

[jaslion]

1 hour ago, Heats with Nvidia said:

Analog, wired headsets and speakers are still the norm. So no, its not all digital. And the quality of that D/A conversion matters.

What I mean is that the chips themselves are just simple digital to analog convertors now for audio which has been mastered for 2 decades now.

 

As you said rare to have bad onboard but it does still happen rarely.

 

If op wants better audio quality plenty other options to choose from and usually the biggest upgrade is just a nice set of headcans

[wONKEyeYEs]

On 3/10/2024 at 5:37 PM, DaddySvit said:

Hello i am upgrading my rig to a 14900k and Asus ROG STRIX Z690-E GAMING WIFI, i also have a saroubd sound and am wonderibg are audio cards for the best quality and are there still problems with noise and jitter. 

I was using my onboard until I started getting a weird problem with videos starting their audio late and missing the first few seconds.

Easiest fix was to throw in the SB Z.

As a bonus, it has it's own equalizer so I don't have to use 3rd party.

[Beerzerker]

From my own personal experience they are better but not required.

It depends on what your onboard audio is comprised of and some onboard audio setups are suprisingly good - However I've yet to have one that truly outperforms a good sound card.

9 hours ago, jaslion said:

If op wants better audio quality plenty other options to choose from and usually the biggest upgrade is just a nice set of headcans

^^^This however is 100% true as well. ^^^

Be it speakers, headphones or whatever..... If that part of your audio setup is sub-par it won't matter what you have in the machine, it will sound like crap regardless.
That's also a good place to start - get some quality speakers/headphones and whatever you have will sound good. Maybe not as good as it could considering other options but a definite improvement and yes, it's noticeable.

From my own personal experiece:
My thing is I can hear more detail in the sound and music I listen to with a card than with onboard sound, plus it can be louder if that's a problem.
I lost about 25% or so of my hearing years ago so it does make a difference to me and I need the extra volume capability to really hear things well (In detail) but from that perspective it makes a difference.

You'd be suprised at how good even a cheap SB card can sound and I currently have one in use I paid $20 to get (Fleabay purchase) and it sounds great, plus it's small enough I have no issues concerning room in the case or it impeding airflow to my GPU card.
My personal requirement was for it to work with both, Windows and Linux and this one does.
This one is an older SB1570 (PCI-E x1) slotted card. 

 I do have a SB Z card as well - That card is the best of the bunch but doesn't work with Linux (No readily useable drivers available for Linux).
The other card I have that does work was one I was using up until recently (I had upgraded the system) and it's an older SB1040 (Old/standard PCI slot) card.

[Motifator]

7 hours ago, Heats with Nvidia said:

Analog, wired headsets and speakers are still the norm. So no, its not all digital. And the quality of that D/A conversion matters.

Otherwise, you are mostly correct. If the mainboard manufacturer didn`t see the audio part as an afterthought or did something wrong (which surprisingly still happens), onboard audio nowadays is pretty good. A good external interface is still an upgrade. But not nearly as much, as it used to be.

 

This is your typical audio fandangoboy who WANTS to believe audio matters when you change cards a lot...

realistically, it's all in the plugins.

Sure, the decoder matters... but like, a lot of it is placebo. My Line 6 POD HD can offer same level tonally when compared to much better modelling units for guitar or vocals or bass or synth. Yes, believe it or not but a 10 year old device performs like new devices. You'd be wrong in some way.

[cmndr]

to echo what everyone else has said... sound cards don't really matter anymore.

They absolutely mattered 25-30 years ago. A huge chunk of the "less scientific" enthusiasts end up repeating things that WERE true decades ago without understanding why they used to be true without knowing that those things don't matter anymore. 

Onboard sound is pretty good these days. It's been good for a while, outside of the edge case of some cheaper boards not having good signal isolation. The main exception is if you're fighting a ground loop in which case DACs can sometimes be useful. 

If you do need anything bigger or crazier you'd want an AVR, though those come with their own trade offs. 

[Motifator]

In the meanwhile, TPA units murdered AVRs in the market of this segment. I stopped using massive amps in favor of tiny Chinese Yuinghui XianghuaAHN (you know) some time ago.

You can get a great power amp with a headphone stage for like 50 bucks...

[cmndr]

1 hour ago, Motifator said:

In the meanwhile, TPA units murdered AVRs in the market of this segment. I stopped using massive amps in favor of tiny Chinese Yuinghui XianghuaAHN (you know) some time ago.

You can get a great power amp with a headphone stage for like 50 bucks...

Seconding this. Amplification is mostly a solved problem. 
Headphones in particular don't need much power and even speakers can get PRETTY GOOD sound with something inexpensive like an Aiyima A07 (uses TPA3255)

AVRs still have their place if you want their DSP functionality. Most other ways of getting 7 or ever 13 channels of sound are REALLY hacky. Or stupidly expensive (think $30,000 DSP that ALSO needs amplification on top of its absurd cost)

[Godlygamer23]

9 hours ago, wONKEyeYEs said:

Easiest fix was to throw in the SB Z.

I also use an SBZ, and it's been working pretty well for several years now. Drivers aren't amazing(some gripes I have with it), but the card itself is quite alright.

[Heats with Nvidia]

6 hours ago, Motifator said:

This is your typical audio fandangoboy who WANTS to believe audio matters when you change cards a lot...

realistically, it's all in the plugins.

Sure, the decoder matters... but like, a lot of it is placebo. My Line 6 POD HD can offer same level tonally when compared to much better modelling units for guitar or vocals or bass or synth. Yes, believe it or not but a 10 year old device performs like new devices. You'd be wrong in some way.

Sorry, but did you even read what i wrote? I clearly wrote the difference is in the D/A conversion and even that is in most cases pretty good. The digital side doesn`t  really matter for the sound quality. Its basically just software.

 

But i also had my fair share of onboard sound that in some laptops can`t really produce very high frequencies or even mainboards that had pretty good DACs, but they either did something wrong with the ground or put signal lines too close to some data lines and you could hear signals of your mouse movement in the background, yay! Thats what i meant with sound as an afterthought. Most other Mainboards were fine when it comes to sound, but sometimes a little too low in output voltage for high impedance headphones etc... So for most people they are perfectly fine, but not for everybody and every use case.

[Motifator]

1 minute ago, Heats with Nvidia said:

Sorry, but did you even read what i wrote? I clearly wrote the difference is in the D/A conversion and even that is in most cases pretty good. The digital side doesn`t  really matter for the sound quality. Its basically just software.

 

But i also had my fair share of onboard sound that in some laptops can`t really produce very high frequencies or even mainboards that had pretty good DACs, but they either did something wrong with the ground or put signal lines too close to some data lines and you could hear signals of your mouse movement in the background, yay! Thats what i meant with sound as an afterthought. Most other Mainboards were fine when it comes to sound, but sometimes a little too low in output voltage for high impedance headphones etc... So for most people they are perfectly fine, but not for everybody and every use case.

You're joking, right? Onboard is way better than your fallacy. On a blind test, you can never tell onboard from sound cards.

I was talking about music PRODUCTION, not even music listening... you're way off.

You're wrong, admit it and move on because music production requires far more tone than music listening. Go bed.

[Psittac]

I did a budget roundup of dac/amp's and could tell a difference on those, but when I listened to YouTube those differences basically vanished.  If you aren't listening to source material that can take advantage of improvements then there is no point in going beyond onboard.

 

35 minutes ago, Motifator said:

You're joking, right? Onboard is way better than your fallacy. On a blind test, you can never tell onboard from sound cards.

I was talking about music PRODUCTION, not even music listening... you're way off.

You're wrong, admit it and move on because music production requires far more tone than music listening. Go bed.

He's not saying ALL onboard is garbage, just that some manufacturers throw it in there because they basically have to, or manufacturing defects etc.  But I'll throw myself into the shat show and say that if you haven't heard a difference in upgrading from onboard, then you've been listening to the wrong equipment.  Even with my non-golden ears I can hear drastic improvements in clarity with the proper headphones and dac not to mention correctly powered.  Don't get me wrong, onboard has come a long ways and is way better than it used to be, but claiming that it's the end all be all with no where to go from that.... is just ignorance?

[Motifator]

Just now, Psittac said:

He's not saying ALL onboard is garbage, just that some manufacturers throw it in there because they basically have to, or manufacturing defects etc.  But I'll throw myself into the shat show and say that if you haven't heard a difference in upgrading from onboard, then you've been listening to the wrong equipment.  Even with my non-golden ears I can hear drastic improvements in clarity with the proper headphones and dac not to mention correctly powered.  Don't get me wrong, onboard has come a long ways and is way better than it used to be, but claiming that it's the end all be all with no where to go from that.... is just ignorance?

What the Line 6 POD HD rack unit uses is basically a purpose built, 600 mhz Cyrix CPU alongside of 2010 mumbus jumbos magicery.

If you honestly think your onboard hooked up to the lord knows what kind of gaming PC, you're doing it wrong.

The Line 6 is a multi purpose, full rack sound card in tandem as much as it is an effects processor. Essentially, you're wrong as well.