Internal Soundcard with External Audio Interface

[zubacho54]

I'm a little confused about soundcards and audio interfaces.

Let's say I have a dedicated internal PCIE soundcard intalled on my computer for gaming purposes (Asus Xonar DX) and I were to plug-in an external USB audio interface (M-audio MobilePre) for recording an instrument, will the external soundcard take over the internal soundcard and replace it, just like having a built-in soundcard being replaced by a dedicated soundcard? Does it work that way?

To my understanding, external USB audio interfaces act the same as internal soundcards. Am I correct?

 

[gamerk316]

More or less. When you output via USB, that USB device becomes the soundcard and is responsable for doing all the audio processing.

You CAN how a USB device handle input, and a soundcard handling output, however.

 

[zubacho54]

Best answer selected by zubacho54.