get off of mobo's sound?

[blueswitch]

So I have been using my onboard sound...but I hear alot of people saying how surprised they were at the clarity they heard after using a soundcard and that it also has freed up the cpu some durring games. The later I doubt how much that is true...but here's the catch...Im running an older pair of Altec Lansing 2.1 sound sticks. If I jumped up to a sound card would it even matter? I may replace
these speakers in the near future but not right now. Also can anyone suggest a card..I don't want a $200 one....was thinking Audigy2 or X-fi would be the route to go....but can anyone suggest? My sound uses are games and music.

[Flip-Mode]

Does your sound card have digital out? Either coaxial or optical?

[blueswitch]

yeah the onboard has optical out

[Flip-Mode]

Ok then, there is no need to get a new card. Just get speakers with digital in.
There is no difference between Audigy and ob when using digital out because there is no conversion of the signal by card.

[blueswitch]

I thought X-fi was great at doing the mp3 decoding cleaner and supported EAX in games which is a huge sound improvement?

[Flip-Mode]

I thought X-fi was great at doing the mp3 decoding cleaner and supported EAX in games which is a huge sound improvement?
All digital outs are the same, the Creative cards can use EAX which will give you some environment affects and do sound nice but looking back on how much I paid for those "nice" affects it doesn't seem to be worth it.
Good card and crappy speakers will still be crappy so you need to figure how to distribute your budget.

[blueswitch]

so can anyone recommend some speakers that take optical in?

[Flip-Mode]

Drop to the Creative site and check them out, all the Creative stuff is very high quality.

[Mr. Roboto]

are you sure about that? A sound card just isn't one big DAC, it does do a fair bit of sound processing.

[R4z0r4mu5 Pr|m3]

if it ain't broken don't fix it, if you are fine with your sound don't give it another thought

[Flip-Mode]

are you sure about that? A sound card just isn't one big DAC, it does do a fair bit of sound processing.
Yup, unless the source is using EAX the sound output is the same.
The sound output using the digital out when not using any kind of effects and such is "clean", it means the sound card just outputs the digital signal and its up to the receiving end to decode it as it wishes.
This is what I know, if I'm wrong people are welcome to correct me.