External Sound Cards

[Ryan_Kennedy]

Well I been looking at external sound cards for upgrading my lacking laptop's onboard sound. Now I have leared that a good sound card would have DSP which it's own processor so it doesn't work the CPU and will actaully take work load off of it. Is that true?

Also if the above statement is correct that would technically mean in an FPs intense game you "could" get more FPS, and better quality sound.

(Would use this external for gaming, music, movies and listening to NHL hockey games over the net.)


And is it better for it to be connected via USB 2.0 or Firewire.

Also is there any external cards someone has owned that they would recommend and could comment on the performance.

Also if you could find one that you recommend that wouldn't eat my CPU and still perform it as be very helpful.

[Yawgm0th]

Originally Posted by Ryan_Kennedy

Well I been looking at external sound cards for upgrading my lacking laptop's onboard sound. Now I have leared that a good sound card would have DSP which it's own processor so it doesn't work the CPU and will actaully take work load off of it. Is that true?

Yes, bt it's not absolutely necessary.

Originally Posted by Ryan_Kennedy

Also if the above statement is correct that would technically mean in an FPs intense game you "could" get more FPS, and better quality sound.

Probably; yes. It still may have the same or more CPU utilization, but it would probably be less. And obviously the quality would be higher.

Originally Posted by Ryan_Kennedy

And is it better for it to be connected via USB 2.0 or Firewire.

It shouldn't matter.

Originally Posted by Ryan_Kennedy

Also is there any external cards someone has owned that they would recommend and could comment on the performance.

Creative essentially has a monopoly in sound cards. There are only a few solutions that are even worth considering (besides onboard), and Creative's devices tend to be better anyway.