External sound card...is it worth it?

[Vortec]

Game: America's Army

Hi everyone.

I'm currently using on-board sound and it's actually not all that bad, but I was wondering if an external sound card would help take some of the load off my CPU and help stabilize FPS during loud noises within the game when the game seems to lag down a bit. I was looking at this one, but would this actually use more CPU power to run than on-board sound since I imagine this external card has it's own processor..? You may be wondering why I don't just get an internal one but that's due to my large Accelero S2 w/ turbo module taking up all previously available PCI slots. Any thoughts, suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated.

System specs.
------------------------------------------
Windows XP Home 32bit
AMD 64 4000+ @ 2.75Ghz 1mb L2 Cache
2Gb G.Skill 3200 @ 458Mhz
EpoX 9NPA+Ultra nForce 4 Mobo w/Realtek AC97 Audio
ATI Radeon X850XT 256MB @ 545Mhz / 1.2Ghz
PSU 500W Earthwatts
400Gb (320Gb Sata 3.0Gbps | 80Gb Sata 1.5Gbps)

**EDIT** Keep in mind that I'm not looking to magically increase FPS with a sound card but rather stabilize them and keep the more consistent with a lot of sound. Thanks.

 

[inquisitor03]

QUOTE:
Processor usage is typically around 25% (on an Intel Core 2 Duo T7250) just for playing music using this devce. Software is also fairly poor.


TBH doesnt sound like a great card. The thing with USB is that it uses CPU cycles too. So anything you would gain by moving away from onboard audio you would lose again from this USB device.

PCI is really the only way to go if your looking to move away from onboard but if you say you can't fit one in then i don't really see any alternative thats going to benefit you any more than what you already have#


EDIT: BTW - I just re-read your message, are both of those links supposed to go to the same usb sound card?

 

[liljone]

only worth it if ur going for better quality sound with high quality speakers.

 

[Vortec]

QUOTE:
Processor usage is typically around 25% (on an Intel Core 2 Duo T7250) just for playing music using this devce. Software is also fairly poor.


TBH doesnt sound like a great card. The thing with USB is that it uses CPU cycles too. So anything you would gain by moving away from onboard audio you would lose again from this USB device.

PCI is really the only way to go if your looking to move away from onboard but if you say you can't fit one in then i don't really see any alternative thats going to benefit you any more than what you already have#


EDIT: BTW - I just re-read your message, are both of those links supposed to go to the same usb sound card?

Alright, thanks. That's what I wanted to know. I was thinking that it might be kind of a catch-22 anyway. Yes, both links were to the same device.

only worth it if ur going for better quality sound with high quality speakers.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking but wasn't sure. Thanks.

 

[llama_man]

Don't forget that you can get PCI-E sound cards now as well, so if you have one of those slots free you might be in luck.