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Question about internal sound realtek vs addin card

Last response: in Components
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Hi

I've been looking around to find an explanation about why i should buy an add in sound card instead of a onboard sound card like realtek. Lot of sites tells me that it sounds better and it have better performance however what im looking for is the hard numbers, I'm looking for a test chart, but cant seem to find one.

Also the recommendation is base on the user having speakers, I'm currently using a "ROCCAT Kave" surround sound headset.

So all in all can it pay to get add in sound card instead of using the onboard Realtek ALC889A?, and if so any recomendations

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Sound quality is subject, add-on cards will generally have better sound quality because it will have additional electronics, capacitors, etc... to provide better sound. On-board sound is just chip and maybe a couple of capacitors to help regulate the voltage.

If using on-board audio sounds fine to you then stick with it.

I'm using a old Audigy 2 card instead of my on-board Realtek. On-board audio sounds a bit flat to me.

Well I do not have an add-in card to compare it with but to my ears it sounds fine though ppl tend to tell me that I'm tone deaf :D 
I play alot of FPS and thus uses the surround sound part a great deal, is it possible to increase that performance i do not really care so much about sound quality as much as the positioning of the sound .

Best solution

I think an add-on card will have better surround sound capabilities. Also, on-board sound uses the CPU so you take a small performance hit in games; maybe 2 or 3 FPS drop at most.
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