Sound card, should I bother?

[Godline]

Hello, Ive recently purchased a surround sound system A sony HT-K25 second hand.
It delivers 5.1 sound quality, I want to connect it to my PC. Im wondering whether should I bother purchasing a sound card to "improve" the sound quality. I ask this because I realise on-board sound technology has gotten better over the years im just not knowledgeable of it.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/creative-sound-blaster-audigy-se-71-oem-pci-sound-card

thats the card I have in mind.

Thanks.

 

[davcon]

Better card with Win7 drivers and years newer.
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-xonar-dg-51-pci-sound-card-and-headphone-ampifier-oem

 

[Godline]

Ahh I forgot to metion its for an old rig I only have 1 PCI E slot thats for the GPU.
Pentium D
1GB DDR ram
8800 gts
400 watt psu.

 

[legendkiller]

Dont bother with sound card if you got 7.1 On Board audio... Sound card makes your music sound better or just sound and you dont really need if you dont do any music edit or sound edit stuff... Sound card is what depend your doing and most of the time it's not needed...

 

[gamerk316]

Yeah, don't even bother with the old SB Audigy; the newer ASUS Xonar DG, and more preferably, the slightly more expensive ASUS Xonar DS blows those cards away at the low end of the market.

 

[intel4eva]

I have a dedicated sound card and swear by it, but I'm not convinced a sub $100 card can outperform a modern motherboard codec (and yes I know there is still great variety in motherboard audio codecs and performance varies).

 

[we1shcake]

i have a xonar dg and it is so much better than my onboard its worth it just to get rid of the elecrical interference noises form the other components and the sound quality is loads better