Somebody tell me why I should purchase a PCI Sound card?

Somebody tell me why I should spend another $100 on my rig for something like an X-Fi Music card? I have an 8 channel onboard sound setup with my A8N-SLI mobo and I dont have a dolby digital 5.1 speaker setup. Can someone give me a good reason why I should spend another $100 for on off-board PCI sound card?

I would really like to be talked into this because I am hearing the people are getting gaming performance gains from simply disabling the on board audio in the motherboard bios and purchasing some sound hardware. Any hard performance truth to this?

Any other reasons I should buy a card?

Dom

Well, first things first.

More fps can be gained from a Creative labs sound card if the games support hardware acceleration and EAX.

Is it measurable? Yes. Do you need it? Depends if you think your games are fast enough with your current GPU and CPU, and if you think it's worth dumping $100 into it.

Voodoo Rufus said:

Well, first things first.

More fps can be gained from a Creative labs sound card if the games support hardware acceleration and EAX.

Is it measurable? Yes. Do you need it? Depends if you think your games are fast enough with your current GPU and CPU, and if you think it's worth dumping $100 into it.

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Thats where the decision comes in. $100 for an audio card for 1 fps and better sound quality? Or $100 to step up with evga save it for the next nvidia 7900 card coming in march? I am trying to figure out if its worth it to buy a sound card.

Dom

cards like the montego and mystique give your games surround sound. i daresay surround sound does more for your games than 100$ worth of video card.

zabomb4163 said:

cards like the montego and mystique give your games surround sound. i daresay surround sound does more for your games than 100$ worth of video card.

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That is a very good point.
However, I must say I am a hi-fidelity buff when it comes to outside of the personal computer. I am just not into audio on a PC, and for me spending $100 more on a video card would probably yield better results. A person in your case would rather spend the money on a dolby digital speaker/audio card setup.

Dom

i would get a better Vid card - if the sound level satisfy you on your PC then why bother