These chips do tasks like filtering and buffering (temporarily storing audio signals for processing, before the audio goes to the speakers/headphones) sound. Then, we have the Operational Amplifiers, or Op-Amps. ![]() The PCM 1792 DAC in the same Asus Essence STX II The CS 5381 ADC on the same card. The quality of these converters greatly affect the overall quality of the audio, that’s why “DAC” is also how people often call “external sound cards” (though people in the hi-end audio community also tend to call sound cards “internal DACs” instead). These chips convert audio signals from one form to another, since the card will need digital sound signals to process the audio, where as the speakers/headphones/microphones will use analog signals while generating or recording sounds. Next, we have the Converters, namely the DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) and the lesser known ADC (Analog to Digital Converter). Here’s the AV100 APU on the Asus Essence STX II card, image courtesy of Guru3D: Predictably, this chip will process the audio signals and send them to your headphones or speakers. That’s why you can also just call the Audio Processing Unit by its informal name, “sound chip” or “sound processor”). So, what gives the sound card the power over audio? Here I’ll briefly go over the main parts of a sound card: Main Components of a Sound Cardįirst, we have the Audio Processing Unit or APU (not to be confused with the more common term associated with “APU”, Accelerated Processing Unit, which is a CPU combined with a cheap GPU. As a general rule, your headphones should be around twice more expensive than your sound card, and your speakers set a bit more than that. Cheap audio chips won’t be able to drive more expensive headphones or speakers to their true potential, and likewise cheap audio gear can’t utilize all the power of a good audio card. Plus, if you don’t have a good sound card, your beastly headphones will go to waste. Besides, sound cards help with recording quality too. ![]() However, people who care about audio demand more than that, just like how gamers demand more and more beastly graphics cards to play at 4K 60fps, because 1440p 59fps is not enough. Granted, sound is much simpler than graphics, and because of that the onboard chips, especially the recent ones, already do more than enough for the average Joe who just wants to be able to hear sound, without stutters or random noise. But now that the graphics card is perhaps the one most talked about component in the PC building community, more than the monitor or even the CPU, that logic kinda fails there. That’s like saying you should just get a better monitor instead of caring about the graphics card. Well, true, but that doesn’t mean the sound card doesn’t have its purpose. If you want better sound quality you should just get a better set of speakers or headphones anyway!” “Ok, but still, won’t the onboard audio chip be enough? After all, I can hear my music and sound effects just fine. Understandably, this is a very niche product, as I guess most of you would be thinking: “Better audio quality? Who needs that? It’s not like we bought our computers to use as media centers, we have our home theater systems for that! PCs should be for ga.” Basically, the sound card’s main purpose is to process the sound signals and give your speakers or headphones a cleaner sound stream, improving your audio quality. Greetings everybody! As I’m a music lover, today I’ll introduce you to sound cards, upon a suggestion from a friend on a chatroom.
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