Sound Card advice.

[Pigslilspaz]

Been having a problem with the sound crapping out on all my games and winamp, and they won't work unless I restart the program. I have a feeling its the integrated sound card so I'm looking for a new one. Been looking and it seems to be a tossup between these 3. Any advice would be appreciated.

[guncrasher]

the first two are the same card, except on the first is an oem so no cd no nothing just the card.  second you get cd, manual. i had it, sound was great but not awesome.  but it's 20 times better than  integrated.

semp

[Pigslilspaz]

Wow I feel stupid lol. Thanks for pointing that out 

[MaSonZ]

what does a one gain from a sound card?

[Reschke]

Check your PM's Pigslilspaz.

[Reschke]

what does a one gain from a sound card?

Most sound cards allow you to tweak and adjust everything from their different software packages. I am a fan of sound cards since I play a ton of music on my computer. I have gone both ways and am currently without a sound card due to the motherboard I have not having a PCI slot; so if I get another sound card I had to go to the PCI-E versions to fit my motherboard. IF I save up the money then I will go with one of these ASUS cards. The main difference between these two linked below is the higher cost one has a headphones amp built into it so I can use my stereo headphones with the bigger 6.3mm jacks.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132006 - $75
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132010 - $157

[MaSonZ]

Most sound cards allow you to tweak and adjust everything from their different software packages. I am a fan of sound cards since I play a ton of music on my computer. I have gone both ways and am currently without a sound card due to the motherboard I have not having a PCI slot; so if I get another sound card I had to go to the PCI-E versions to fit my motherboard. IF I save up the money then I will go with one of these ASUS cards. The main difference between these two linked below is the higher cost one has a headphones amp built into it so I can use my stereo headphones with the bigger 6.3mm jacks.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132006 - $75
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132010 - $157

thank you much sir! 

[Bino]

what does a one gain from a sound card?

The sound chips mounted on a mobo use the system's main CPU for some portion of the digital signal processing that turns ones and zeroes into the analog sounds that your ears can process.  A properly designed sound card and drivers can take that load off the CPU.  On the other hand, there does seem to be a fair number of folks out there who believe that a modern CPU can handle that load.  Because I have yet to see any definitive test result numbers on this topic, I revert to the old saw, "throw more hardware at the problem", and use an add-in sound card.  YMMV.

[SIK1]

If you do add a sound card make sure you disable the on board sound as well as deleting the drivers for it.