In the past Ive always brought dedicated sound cards for my computers, however these days most motherboards have some sort of audio support built in, in fact many even are capable of surround sound, and a large amount of the audio processing can be done completely in software anyway (eg as I understand, XAudio2, which is set to replace DirectSound does all processing in software, just using the hardware to actually send the final audio data to the speakers).
So considering those things is there actually any point to fitting a dedicated sound card in modern computers?
EDIT: So does the improved quality of dedicated audio hardware apply to software based audio solutions which seem to be becoming more popular?
Best Answer
The motherboard integrated soundcards usually have much more noise, noticeable at higher gains, due to proximity to other components and not being shielded. This noise can be very unpleasant, and if you have good speakers/headphones, it's even more noticeable.
If you care about the sound quality and/if you have good quality speakers/headphones, you should get a good soundcard, perhaps an external one if you plan on recording something aswell (easier to connect, no interference).
On another note: did anyone ever notice in some computers you can hear a static noise when moving the mouse with max volume?
EDIT: If you really want to see how your soundcard performs comparing to others in the market, download the audio benchmarking tool at audio.rightmark.org and compare your results with some commercial and professional sound cards out there in their site. You'll probably need a cable to connecto the speaker and microphone jacks. (though I think this might be a little bit too much if you're not into audiophile/professional stuff)