Advantage of a sound card?

[sclincoln]

I know that once upon a time, there was a distinct advantage to having an independent sound card to take the load off the processor. I was under the impression that nowadays though, the M/B onboard sound systems were good enough that the CPU shouldn't be adversely affected. Is that still the case, or should I try out a sound card? If so, will just any sound card do, to take the load off the CPU (ie. I have an old Soundblaster Live around here somewhere, or an inexpensive Audigy)? I only have 2.1 speaker system and I mostly fly using my USB headset anyway so I'm not willing to spend too much.

[loki]

On board sound cards still rely on the CPU to do the actual audio processing, while the Sound Blaster Audigy and X-Fi line (well, most of them) will do it themselves. There are some cheaper versions of the Audigy (Audigy 4 SE I think) and X-Fi series (X-Fi Extreme Audio) that are little better than on-board, but the rest will take the load off. If you want to buy one, the X-Fi Xtreme Gamer would be a good choice.

Using a USB headset bypasses the sound card (on-board or add-in) altogether as they have one built in.

There are other add-in sound cards, but they are typically geared towards sound quality and again use the CPU for any processing.

loki