Are Sound Cards Really Important?

[BronyPie]

Since I will mainly be using my Gaming Headset, Would it be really important when building a PC?

[TidaLWaveZ]

Any idea on what mobo or is this in general?  New mobo's generally have good enough onboard sound

[Bananasplit_00]

soundcards are a waste almost always, they have little use outside high end enthusiasts if you are not running a really old motherboard

[SeraphicWings]

No, unless you are an audio enthusiasts (who will most likely buy a dac amp instead of wasting money on a soundcard anyway)

 

The DAC that comes with mid to high end mobos are really really good already

[vorticalbox]

1 minute ago, SeraphicWings said:

No, unless you are an audio enthusiasts (who will most likely buy a dac amp instead of wasting money on a soundcard anyway)

 

The DAC that comes with mid to high end mobos are really really good

 

I wouldn't say "really really" but easily adequate for gaming, music, and movies. I wouldn't waste my money on one.

[Automobili3XF]

Not so much so nowadays.

Back in the day they really made a difference, but some motherboards already come with good internal sound chips.

And considering you have a "gaming headset", i think it wouldn't be of much use for you.

[SSL]

I need to start keeping a tally on how many times this question gets asked.

[ARikozuM]

11 minutes ago, SSL said:

I need to start keeping a tally on how many times this question gets asked.

Make a thread instead. Let's see some hard numbers over time.

[SSL]

8 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

Make a thread instead. Let's see some hard numbers over time.

Hmm...

[JoeCoke]

Not nowadays. Back in the day (I'm talking early 2000s and 90s) they made a huge difference and were even required a lot of the time (Soundblaster Live anyone? ). Nowadays on board sound is more than good enough.

[ARikozuM]

Just now, 2Buck said:

Not nowadays. Back in the day (I'm talking early 2000s and 90s) they made a huge difference and were even required a lot of the time (Soundblaster Live anyone? ). Nowadays on board sound is more than good enough.

I would agree. It wasn't until the late 90's that on-board started becoming usable for everyone.

[it_dont_work]

10 minutes ago, 2Buck said:

Soundblaster Live anyone?

That was awesome, like pci sound card, screw you isa! Where's my cd audio cable gotta plug this shit in.

[Dackzy]

There is only a pinned post about amps and DAC. Guess what is on a soundcard... A amp and a DAC...

[BrightCandle]

A soundcard is more than just an AMP and DAC. In particular for gamers the biggest thing that matters is binaural audio, or Dolby Headphone/SBX Pro/CMSS etc. These technologies take the 5.1/7.1 output from DirectX and sample it down to headphones. Depending on the shape of your ears and how well the default in DirectX suits you for gaming this can dramatically improve your ability to determine where sounds are coming from.

 

Its denied by a lot of people as just "reverb" but that isn't actually what its doing, its adding the appropriate delays and adjustments to the frequencies dependent on the angle the sound is coming from. Its not perfect for you (we each need personalised measurements for that), its not ray traced and so environmentally it sounds wrong but there is benefit to what the sound card does. The current best implementation is SBX pro on the Soundblaster Z.

[Dackzy]

17 minutes ago, BrightCandle said:

A soundcard is more than just an AMP and DAC.

Depends on what you get. If you know how a DAC and amp works, then you basically also know how a sound card works, not all sound cards have software surround or real surround on them or even software. 

[spwath]

1 hour ago, BrightCandle said:

A soundcard is more than just an AMP and DAC. In particular for gamers the biggest thing that matters is binaural audio, or Dolby Headphone/SBX Pro/CMSS etc. These technologies take the 5.1/7.1 output from DirectX and sample it down to headphones. Depending on the shape of your ears and how well the default in DirectX suits you for gaming this can dramatically improve your ability to determine where sounds are coming from.

 

Its denied by a lot of people as just "reverb" but that isn't actually what its doing, its adding the appropriate delays and adjustments to the frequencies dependent on the angle the sound is coming from. Its not perfect for you (we each need personalised measurements for that), its not ray traced and so environmentally it sounds wrong but there is benefit to what the sound card does. The current best implementation is SBX pro on the Soundblaster Z.

But there is software to do the same, like Razer surround.

And binaural audio means it was recorded binauraly

[iShad]

2 hours ago, BrightCandle said:

The current best implementation is SBX pro on the Soundblaster Z.

Far from it, the best method I've tried is dolby Atmos on overwatch and that can be implemented by the devs. The best method hands down is the realiser a16 that can create personalized hrtf with head tracking.