(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
It's been over a decade since I last bought a discrete internal sound card for my PC — and the only reason I purchased one back then was because I had a set of 5.1 surround sound PC speakers (Logitech Z906) that I wanted to use with a motherboard that only had built-in support for a stereo system. (While there were probably several ways this could have been handled, I opted for the sound card because my speakers were already set up and I didn't spend all that time running wires around my home office for nothing.)Even back then, discrete sound cards already seemed like they were on their way out, as onboard audio, while not wildly impressive, was already at the point where it was decent enough that many users who were just looking for occasional audio playback from their system were... fine with it. And as onboard audio has continued to improve, and headsets and speakers with built-in audio interfaces, as well as external DACs, have become more popular (and more affordable, at least somewhat), sound cards have become more of a fringe add-on than an absolute necessity. That doesn't mean there's absolutely no market for a discrete internal PCIe sound card such as the Creative Sound Blaster Audigy FX Pro, of course. There is a market, but it's definitely small enough that I think we can call it a niche these days.The Creative Sound Blaster Audigy FX Pro is a discrete internal sound card that supports high-resolution playback (up to 32-bit / 384 kHz) and 7.1 surround sound out of the box. It also features a built-in headphone amp with an output impedance of 4.7 ohms, and has a 120 dB SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) for a clean, clear signal. It's a compact add-in card that the company believes the people need, as "audio remains one of the most overlooked upgrades" (I suppose that's not wrong). And it's priced at $79.99, which is fairly affordable — at the very least, it's less than half the price of many of our favorite gaming headsets, so maybe this is the audio upgrade you're looking for.
