I haven't built a gaming PC in over 7 years...

I haven't built a gaming PC in over 7 years. I hear now that most high-end mobos now have good enough onboard sound that buying a separate sound card isn't recommended. Is this true?

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youtube.com/watch?v=pfiHFqnPLZ4
szynalski.com/tone-generator/
testufo.com/
asus.com/us/Sound-Cards/Essence_STX_II/
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USB DACs will outperform anything onboard other than the very high end.

Depends what you're using it for. The sound from a regular motherboard is passable, yes, but if you're trying to produce music you will need a high end sound card.

That was true seven years ago too

>USB DACs will outperform anything onboard

>most high-end mobos now have good enough onboard sound that buying a separate sound card isn't recommended

Yeah. Onboard sound is plenty good for plebs like you. For those who still aren't satisfied, you can buy a USB DAC.
Don't use the audio jacks on the front of your case.
The cable that routes from the sound card or the motherboard to the front of the case acts as an antennae and absorbs the massive amounts of noise being emitted in the case.

I can spend $60 on a USB DAC that outperforms a $200 sound card in pure quality.

Prove it

Define outperform.

Most people buy useless stuff that is way over-engineered. You are limited by the weakest link, which in many cases (if you are not using Chinese garbage-tier stuff) is going to be your ears. It's hilarious watching people buy 192 kHz crap while their ears cannot perceive anything beyond 17 kHz (thus you need twice that, following Nyquist's theorem, i.e. 34 kHz; i.e. 41 kHz is more than enough).

>muh USB dac
>Prove it

Still no response.
top-kek.jpg

It's basically just marketing. Our eyes are way more sophisticated, thus vendors can continue selling us upgrades like 4K, 8K and so on.

But for audio we've reached the best we can achieve 20 years ago with CD quality. Anything beyond that is something your ears cannot perceive anyway.

There’s still some reasons to buy an external DAC, like reduced noise floor (to the point of inaudibility, ideally).

Although for the most part you’re probably right, a dollar spent on a DAC is likely better spent on a nicer monitor/the actual headset.

For the lower-end stuff, sure. When I updated to a board that no longer featured a PCI slot a few years ago, and thus could no longer use my trusty Xonar DG, I didn't really miss it. Higher-end stuff still has a place, but high end sound cards are a contentious issue. On the one hand, you can get similar performance out of a USB DAC for cheaper, but that necessitates using desk space for the DAC while a sound card is entirely internal. I personally value the desk space more and am using a Xonar Essence STX right now, but I don't know how much longer it will last considering that Asus hasn't updated the drivers in several years. A friend of mine using a different Asus sound card with a similar driver situation had his card stop working after the Windows 10 Creators Update.

No.
They are brainlets with shitty Razer headphones and monitor built in speakers, ofcourse they are spreading lies.

Your ears can only perceive 44Khz
Your eyes can only perceive 30fps
Your fingers can only control at 100dpi
Your brain can only process 5Mbps

Just use your seven year old system. Humans can't tell the difference.

>had his card stop working after the Windows 10 Creators Update.

There are third party drivers though, go check em

> Your ears can only perceive 44Khz

Wrong. Your ears can perceive up to 20 kHz (in practice it's actually less than that for an adult). Per Nyquist's theorem we double the sampling rate, thus getting 40 kHz. But, yes, you don't need more than 41 or 44 kHz.

>Your eyes can only perceive 30fps

Wrong. You can clearly see the difference between 30fps and 60fps.

>I can spend $60 on a USB DAC that outperforms a $200 sound card in pure quality.

A few interesting links

To view the difference between fps: youtube.com/watch?v=pfiHFqnPLZ4
To try your hearing: szynalski.com/tone-generator/

Most modern ALC1220 audio implementations will be more than enough for 98% of users. Good examples have 120dB+ SNR which is way beyond what people can realistically detect. For that last 2% of people there's some value in getting an external DAC/amp, but if you have to ask you almost certainly don't need it.

Yeah but unless you have a USB DAC and properly designed amplifier with well chosen speakers the test will do nothing for you.

If your running on shit sound equipment to begin with you can't test anything. It's completely flawed and frankly I'm sick of neo/g/ not understand quality sound. Where did all the people I used to talk with about emerging sound tech run off too? Now you are literally saying onboard sound isn't beaten wooly bully by an external DAC. Fucking crazy pills

not him but I have a Modi 2 and I use it with 48 kHz or so

What the fuck is a 60/120 FPS framerate comparison going to do on a 60 FPS video. At least link to the blurbuster alien test
testufo.com/

By 17khz I assume you mean pitch.
Sound, like video has two common aspects: color and frame rate, which in music is called pitch and sample rate accordingly. The comparison between 17khz pitch and 44.1khz sample rate is like the comparison between the color range of a screen and its frame rate, the two have nothing to do with each other.

The point is that even shitty equipment has 44 kHz bandwidth yet you can't hear shit beyond 17 kHz (i.e. an implied 34 kHz sampling rate).

To hear a sound of frequency 17 kHz you need a minimum sampling rate of 2x that, i.e. 34 kHz.

If you can't hear that on your card with a bandwidth of 41 or 44 kHz, there is no point going above.

You missed his point completely.
17kHz sine at 34kHz sample rate is going to have, as you posted, only 2 samples per cycle, producing literally a triangular waveform. At 68kHz you would get 4 samples per cycle, which would produce something much closer to original sine waveform.

So yes, 34kHz is technically enough to reproduce a 17kHz sound, but the higher your sampling rate, the better it is going to be reproduced, so you posting there is no point to high sample rates is just bullshit.

Still using: asus.com/us/Sound-Cards/Essence_STX_II/

>That was true seven years ago too
Absolutely this.

have you heard of oversampling?
having a higher sampling rate is very advantageous while producing music, because of potential for lower noise, less use of interpolation etc.

you can use different interpolation techniques to retrieve the original information, as long as nyquist rate is satisfied, such as interpolation via sinc functions etc.

Not sure what you mean by high-end mobos, but pretty much every mobo at $50 or higher is going to sound perfectly fine if you’re not some kind of audiophile

If you don't enjoying static, buzzing and cracking noise you will get external sound card.