What sound card to get?

[Katana1000S]

Originally Posted by cre8tive Delay

As to onboard sound: unless you have a decent soundprocessor on your mainboard, never go with onboard sound. The sound might be ok nowadys but the performance isn't. Your CPU has got to process sound here.
Using a soundcard frees ur CPU and that way increases your fps
Also, a onboard soundcard is most likely not capable of bringing you complex sound effects or precise surrond positioning.

Agreed, I've always leaned towards performance PC builds with high end motherboards, but even the best of them with on-board sound do not compare to a dedicated quality sound-card that does its own processing and leaves the CPU to do the work on the sim ... it always amazes me how some guys will spend thousands on a PC build but cut corners in this area ... one of my friends did exactly this, I asked him why he never pushed the boat and got a decent sound card and speakers too, he said he'd rather spend that money on neon lights multi colour fans and cathodes to light the inside of the PC, I just said "Oh" ... never told him it looked like a Circus for fear of hurting his feelings LoL. he's now getting an expensive custom paint job on its case done ... each to their own I guess.