Sound cards are a meme.

Get an external USB-powered DAC/AMP and stop being an idiot.

>2016
>sound cards
...for what purpose?

ac97 my man. The onboard sound chip these days is just as good if not better.

>>55598875
Do people actually use sound cards ? I've never considered one since my meme headset works fine and has quality sound.

>>55598912
>Do people actually use sound cards ?
Audiophiles, probably.

>>55598875
>Why the fuck don't they work under Linux?
They haven't bothered making them compatible because there's no market there: people who use Linux are all either too smart or too poor to buy into the sound card meme.

The only use I've ever had for soundcards is for when you buy a sever board for desktop use and it doesn't have integrated sound
>>55598929
or because sound cards are a extremely niche product nowadays and they literally can't afford to develop linux drivers

>>55598912
Sound cards stopped having a real purpose some 10 years ago, when computers no longer needed a separate processor for audio playback, thanks to having multiple cores and multi-threading. Programs and games that actually synthesized sound also basically died out by then.

Modern soundcards are simply DSPs, and still rely on the CPU to feed them audio data, otherwise there's nothing they can do that you can't just within the OS itself. An exception would be additional connectivity, which might matter if you're trying to capture or play back audio with a source that your motherboard doesn't support.

If you want to play some really old games without having to use an emulator for sound, or experience 3D surround, it might be cool to get an X-Fi or some other older card that has real hardware audio.

>>55598920
No, they use external DACs and amps. An internal one as well would just be another chance for the evil electromagic fairies to get into their sound and rape their ears.

>>55598875
Excellent.

>>55598912
I own a xonar essence ST.

>>55599051
thank you

Why is /g/ so dumb?

>>55598890
No.

>>55598896
Why external? Is amplification the only reason you'd buy a sound card?

>>55598897
Better than on-board, more I/O options, more features to name some.

>>55598912
Well clearly you are not in the market for one in that case. Not all integrated audio solutions and headphones are made equal.

>>55599026
>The only use I've ever had for soundcards is for when you buy a sever board for desktop use and it doesn't have integrated sound
This obviously is one use case for them.

>>55599051
>Sound cards stopped having a real purpose some 10 years ago
They didn't but they stopped being a necessity because of integrated audio codecs on the motherboard. Go back about ten years and the separate sound card with its own processor could actually give a performance increase in games(assuming it was supported) or allowed you to use higher quality audio options in games.

Better audio quality than on board.

Shielding.

Far better if a mic is being used. E.g with a Xonar you can filter it so it's 10/10 quality. (+Voice modulation.)


The break-in price is too high. Massive GPUs taking up two slots each (AMD/Nvidia, you faggots.) means there usually isn't even room for the smallest of additional PCIE devices unless you think giving up 30-50% FPS from a secondary card is worth it for no hiss at high volumes and perfect mic recording.


Linux is pretty shit on drivers all around and always will be as long as it has 5 million dickbags creating new standards, new distros, new DEs and all this shit instead of working together to make one not suck horribly in some fundamental way.

Hardware soundcards, much like hardware modems back in the very early 2000's or so, did offer performance gains since it takes load off of the cpu. Now that'd be pretty minimal even over some intel budget bin i3

>>55599454
>2016
>dual gpu

Really? That shit is rightly dead

>>55599605

It's worth it in some cases. Most current titles at least work with SLi and Crossfire with enough performance gain it's worth the hassle. No, microstutter isn't a thing these days.

>>55599404
>implying amplification is the only reason external is superior
Why is /g/ so dumb?

>>55599638
>No, microstutter isn't a thing these days.
Tell that to Witcher 3 Crossmeme. Probably SLI too but I can't make any claims there since I have never used it personally.

>>55599664
Never implied and external != superior.

>>55599676

2x 290x TRI-X 8gb

TW3 in AFR Crossfire runs at 3200x1800 > 70 FPS.

No stutter.

>>55598875
Looks horribly terribly overdesigned

What does it alledgedly sound like?

I have a Roland Quad Capture... I shall never invest in anything like this again

>>55599454
>Far better if a mic is being used. E.g with a Xonar you can filter it so it's 10/10 quality.

Just get a cheap Focusrite and an actual microphone

>>55599749

>Implying some giant BBC-sized object in the middle of your desk for good audio is superior to being able to turn your average headset mic into a Yeti with perfect sound.

>>55599775
>turn your average headset mic into a Yeti

Enjoy your 50 or 60Hz noise

I can't recommend any microphones with a USB interface built into them

Personally I prefer to have my devices split up. My cans are cans, mic is mic and sound card is an external box

>he fell for the soundcard meme

is this 2005

>>55599454
>Better audio quality than on board.
>
>Shielding.
Literally pointless if your running an external DAC

>Not running an external DAC

LERL

Only people who have never actually owned a sound card say it's a meme.

Even a very basic and cheap setup of a Xonar DS + a good aftermarket Op Amp will show noticeably better sound than onboard.