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Author Topic: Is a sound card worth it?  (Read 3595 times)

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Offline Snake X

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Is a sound card worth it?
« on: June 28, 2011, 06:58:44 pm »
edit: At DJ_O: before i begin, i wanted to say I believe this is the right forum for this thread. 'general technology and hardware discussion' and I am indeed discussing hardware.

Is it really worth it you guys think? I have been thinking about getting one for a while now and I have some money coming to me to buy one. I know it takes the strain off the CPU or the onboard chip to raise FPS (as i herd) but seriously.. im running a gtx 460, so that won't be the case for me. I want to know if i will be able to hear at least a half-noticable difference in sound quality when im gaming, since i do have a logitech z 2300 speaker setup and those are nice 2.1 speakers. If i were to buy one it would have to be $130 max. Can't go over that.

thanks!
« Last Edit: June 28, 2011, 07:01:36 pm by Snake X »
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Offline fb39ca4

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Re: Is a sound card worth it?
« Reply #1 on: June 28, 2011, 07:20:01 pm »
I think it increases fps by like 3% or something, most games don't spend that much time on audio processing. The last sound card I ever owned was an ISA one, so I can't really say anything about the quality though :P.
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Offline AngelFish

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Re: Is a sound card worth it?
« Reply #2 on: June 28, 2011, 08:49:50 pm »
I think it would be a waste of money to spend anywhere near 130 for a sound card. Unless you're running crysis on top of Minecraft, the removed load will be unnoticeable. As for audio quality, I highly doubt that it will noticeably improve. Human ears are... insensitive. You'd be better off improving the speakers/ headphones :)
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Offline fb39ca4

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Re: Is a sound card worth it?
« Reply #3 on: June 28, 2011, 09:05:53 pm »
Quote from: Qwerty.55 on June 28, 2011, 08:49:50 pm
...Unless you're running crysis on top of Minecraft...
I lol'ed
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Offline Snake X

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Re: Is a sound card worth it?
« Reply #4 on: June 28, 2011, 09:36:58 pm »
yeah.. i don't really need the 'performance increase' aspect of it, just the improved audio quality. Also yeah, but that's what creative card's really cost.. one going up to $170!

edit: the sound card i have in my motherboard that im running off of atm is the realtek alc892 chipset. Supposedly this is one of the higher quality onboard chipset's as far as audio goes on realtek, so I don't think that i will be investing in a sound card. I'll be investing in a laptop for school instead :)
« Last Edit: June 28, 2011, 09:47:24 pm by Snake X »
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Offline fb39ca4

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Re: Is a sound card worth it?
« Reply #5 on: June 28, 2011, 10:08:18 pm »
Good choice. I find current onboard audio to be quite sufficient too, if there was an increase in quality with a dedicated card, it's not worth the $130 to me.
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Offline Silver Shadow

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Re: Is a sound card worth it?
« Reply #6 on: June 29, 2011, 06:17:35 am »
Quote from: Qwerty.55 on June 28, 2011, 08:49:50 pm
Human ears are... insensitive. You'd be better off improving the speakers/ headphones :)
You'd better be off improving your ears/getting more of them.
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Offline Geekboy1011

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Re: Is a sound card worth it?
« Reply #7 on: June 29, 2011, 11:06:26 am »
unless your in the music industry its not worth it. get that laptop for school it will definitely prove more valuable in the long run ^_^
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