Additional Information About the Sound Card

The Computer's Sound Card

There are just a few things you need to know if you want to upgrade the sound card in your computer or add a sound card if the only one you have is built in to your motherboard.

Built-in Vs. PCI Sound Cards

If you have a built-in sound card, you should make sure that it can be bypassed by a PCI sound card before you buy one, otherwise you will not get any benefit from the additional card.

Know what you want your sound card to support

Does your card need to support surround sound or a subwoofer? Do you want digital inputs and outputs as well as analog? Does your sound card need to suppor S/PDIF (Sony?Phillips Digital Interface), Optical, or Midi connections? All of these are important things to consider if you are going to be using your sound card as more than just a speaker input-output device.

Know what you want to do with sound

If you are planning on using your sound card to record or mix digital audio, you will have a different set of requirements than if you just want a sound card for voice-over IP chatting or listining to CDs and DVDs. Some sound cards support duplexing, which is the ability to process audio-in and audio-out signals simultaneously, which is vital if you want to use voice chat or Internet telephony over your sound card, or if you want to play sound from multiple programs at the same time. If you want to use the sound card for recording or high-quality playback, you'll need to know it's sampling rate. The higher the sampling rate, the closer the digital recording will get to the original analog sound.



Now that you know everything you need to know about the sound card: