what difference does sound card make?

[MichaelHo]

Hi all,
im looking to get a new set up very soon, i was under the impression that the onboard sound is pretty good nowadays, will a sound card make a lot of differnce?
all i want to do is listen to music and play games and watch the occasional movie.
I have a 2.1 logitech speaker sub set up.

 

[da_mic_1530]

to me it made a large difference, i listen 2 a lot of dance music, lots of bass etc, and onboard didnt kick out the true sound imo. + i had a 5.1 surround sound set up but music would only play 2.1, with my cheap OCUK 40 quid audigy 4 it upscales to all 5 speakers, bass is better and the overall sound quality is better, so good that on some of my lower quality dance songs you can hear where they have screwed the mixing up

 

[cleanbluesky]

You dont need to pay much to get a soundcard with a top-class digital to analog converter... buy M-Audio...

 

[theforce]

Another vote for m-audio here. I went from an Audigy2Zs to a Revolution 5.1 and the difference was obvious.