What Is the Point of a Sound Card?
Your computer most likely has an integrated audio chip -- a chip that produces the sound that you hear when you play a game or music recording on your computer. Because most computers have the ability to produce audio without the aid of sound cards, you might wonder why companies produce sound cards at all. There are certain benefits to owning a sound card, but all users do not require those benefits.
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Gaming Performance
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A sound card has a dedicated processor -- like the central processing unit in your computer -- for performing audio calculations, while an integrated audio chip uses your computer's CPU for assistance. If you are playing music while browsing the Web, you are unlikely to notice a decrease in performance due to the work that the CPU performs to produce the audio. However, a computer game often requires many audio calculations to be performed simultaneously. If the CPU is already busy performing the artificial intelligence calculations necessary to move enemy characters around a game world, for example, the overall performance of the game may not be as high as it would be with a sound card. Sound cards may also have the ability to add post-processing to the sound effects in games to create more realistic environments. For example, an echo effect might be added to sounds when your character is in a cave.
Sound Quality and Fidelity
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Integrated audio chips generally record audio with a maximum fidelity of 16 bits, while some sound cards have the ability to record audio at 24 bits or higher. Although 24-bit audio is impractical for applications, such as creating a recording to share on MySpace or YouTube due to the large file sizes that result, it can be extremely useful for musicians and music producers.
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Noise Floor
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All audio equipment produces a certain amount of noise, resulting from factors such as heat and interfering electrical signals. Because of their close proximity to other components in the computer, integrated audio chips generally produce more noise than dedicated sound cards. This is particularly true of laptop audio chips, which tend to produce a significant amount of noise and static when speakers or headphones are connected. This can be bothersome if you enjoy listening to music at a loud volume level. It can also ruin a multi-track audio recording, as the noise would be present in each track of the recording. A sound card has a much lower noise floor, meaning that you would have to turn the volume up much higher to hear the natural noise of the equipment.
Connectivity Options
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Most integrated audio chips do not feature the connectivity options that you would find in a dedicated sound card, such as separate line-level and microphone inputs, outputs for multiple speakers in a surround configuration and outputs for digital receivers or amplifiers. A typical integrated audio chip might have outputs for just a few speakers, and combined line-in and microphone-in input. This makes integrated audio chips impractical for recording and home theater applications.
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