Are sound cards going?

[Agent]

Yes modern GPU would work, as would most motherboards now as they've started paying for the compression codecs to allow surround over SPDIF.

I've just had a quick look through some Z97 boards. It seems to be down to the manufacturer:

Gigabyte / MSI don't appear to have any boards that support DTS Connect.
ASUS and AsRock do.

Almost none seem to support Dolby Digital Live, but rather DTS Connect exclusively.

[kalniel]

I've just had a quick look through some Z97 boards. It seems to be down to the manufacturer:

Gigabyte / MSI don't appear to have any boards that support DTS Connect.
ASUS and AsRock do.

Almost none seem to support Dolby Digital Live, but rather DTS Connect exclusively.

DTS seems to be much cheaper to license. Most sound cards tend to be DTS connect rather than DDL as well, until you get into quite expensive ones.

[rich835]

I've also not bought a soundcard for any of my recent builds.
It's been over 10 years I'd say since I noticed the benefit over onboard sound, and that was in one specific application only. I'd say in 90% of cases, they're really obsolete now.

[dfour]

I have always found the sound on sound cards better than te onboard stuff ever since I got my first SBlive24 all those years ago and prefere the sound of my SB-Z over the onboard on my CH 5. Better fuller sound with much better surround especially in games trying to keep my dogtags intact and not getting knifed in BF4.

[camalbitboy]

I'm still a big fan of creative soundcards. I find the game and entertainment mode switcher indespensible as the set up for listening to music is very different to when you need surround sound for games. Under Game setting I get proper 7.1 surround (5.1 where the game doesn't support 7.1) and when in entertainment mode the stereo surround sounds so much better.
In my current build on an MSI Z87-G45 Gaming I tried the onboard sound and found the functionality loss was too annoying, it was neither set up correctly for games or music compared to what I was used to. I reused my Creative PCIE SoundBlaster XFI Titanium.
Looks like I will have to go Asus and new speakers when these die as it seems Creative have dropped support for 7.1 surround gaming, and the Asus connections look like they won't work with my speakers

[Kovoet]

Never liked creative card till I got my soundblaster zx best sound I have ever had. Even though you don't have to unplug anything switching from speakers to headphones it sounds brilliant in game and watching movies. Sounds brilliant with my speakers.

[Eldeblor]

In my opinion my motherboard provides satisfactory sound quality for my ath-m50x and do not feel I need a sound card. For higher end headphones a Amp would be a better choice.

[markieboy]

Personally I'm not all that impressed with the quality of the sound on my Asus Maximus Vii board. The sounds OK for gaming with headphones, but for general music listening it's not a patch on the quality of my old Sound Blaster X-fi card that unfortuantly doesn't fit my new MB, so I'm now in the process of looking for a new sound card.

[dfour]

Personally I'm not all that impressed with the quality of the sound on my Asus Maximus Vii board. The sounds OK for gaming with headphones, but for general music listening it's not a patch on the quality of my old Sound Blaster X-fi card that unfortuantly doesn't fit my new MB, so I'm now in the process of looking for a new sound card.

I replaced my x-fi fatal1ty with a sound blaster Z and have never looked back

[Spreadie]

The onboard sound on my two most recent motherboards has been good enough for me not to notice the difference between them and a discreet card and, now that I've gone ITX, I don't have much of a choice.

Audiophiles may argue the case for high end cards, but I have neither the hearing or the funds to do them justice; never mind the crazy expensive headphones.

[Wordsmither]

If you've a decent motherboard

There's no real need for a soundcard.

Especially if your audio device isn't premium

[PowerPie5000]

I have an Asus Xonar DG in my current build but I'm not going to transfer it to my new rig next week. I'm following a less is more ethos where the new rig's concerned and from what I've been reading about the onboard on my new mobo I don't think I'll need the added card. Less power being drawn too, although admittedly that's not the main concern.

I used an Asus Xonar DG in my previous rig as the integrated Realtek ALC892 codec wasn't that great and i also wanted a headphone amp. I'm not bothering with the Asus Xonar in my new build though as the integrateed sound chip is actually pretty good! It's an Asrock Z97 Extreme4 board with a "Purity Sound 2" chip (Realtek ALC1150). It's fully shielded and has decent Nichicon audio caps along with a headphone amp and the drivers are good too .

[vinnyT]

I use a dedicated soundcard because I am hard of hearing (not completely deaf, but getting there) and the sound from the onboard chip was not clear and crisp enough for me to hear all the sounds from games that I play, even with Headphones, but with the soundcard (Creative soundblaster "Z") all is clear again and no longer fuzzy.

[markieboy]

Brought the sound blaster z just over a month ago and absolutely love it. The sound has so much more depth than the onboard sound card on my MB.

[Tallflip]

I'm planning on getting a new motherboard that has a good inbuilt sound card (Gigabyte has some Sound Core 3D and Asus some nice ones also). Haven't used a sound card in years.

[Game388]

i currently have a X-fi, but planning to ditch it, as the new motherboard (Asus Maximus VII Formula) im planning to get, got very good review on audio on board.