The SupremeFX III™ onboard audio vs DAC or soundcard

Hello all,

I have an Asus Crosshair V Formula Z with the The SupremeFX III™ onboard audio chip. Now I just bought hyperx cloud headphones and they are amazing. My only problem is that they are a little on the softer side when it comes to max volume. I changed a couple of settings within windows and it seemed to help. My question is, if i buy a DAC or sound card would the audio quality improve at all? I don't have much for a sound card so I am looking to spend around 15-20 USD. Would a DAC or sound card at that price even be worth it?

My biggest concern, other than loudness is that occasionally there will be static coming over on the headphones and occasionally the mic quality will drop for a couple minutes. Does this sound like the sound card on the board is at fault?

Any help and info would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

I don't know if your onboard sound is the cause of the crackling but I do know that for $15-20 you're not going to get an improvement in sound over the onboard.

For the audio issues, have you tried plugging them into another source? Like a phone or MP3 player?

Well I changed a bunch of setting s and it turns out I needed to install the audio driver.

So I just went through a bit of the same scenario OP. SupremeFX is a rebranded Realtech (I can't remember the actual model number). With the higher quality boards like Crosshair series from ASUS, you can expect that the audio is routed with great care. That isn't to say that it is supreme clean and high studio quality. With really good headphones, you would still be able to hear some noise on the lines. The same would happen if you have a PCI-E card or USB external card. At a certain point you need that external amplifier that cleans out all the noise the computer contains from just random switches throughout the system.

With those drivers installed, you should have a lot of fun tools to play around with and tune it to your liking.