What add-in cards do you have in your computer (besides a video card)?

I'm been doing some thinking.... and for quite a while now, the only add-in card on my computer has been the video card. This has been very different from ages ago when you had to add-on extras.

Network card? Practically every motherboard has a network port.... and some have two.
Sound card? Gone are the days where you got yourself a soundblaster. In most cases, the onbaord sound is pretty danged good.
Hard drive interface card? Bah, a good motherboard has multiple SATA ports.
Game port? That got combined with the sound card, and then we all used USB.
USB ports? Most motherboards have multiple USB 2 and USB 3 ports in the back, plus headers for connections elsewhere.

The only other add-in card that I can think of using would be a WiFi card, and even some motherboard contain those. Heck, even a video card isn't necessary, as many games will work with onboard video. Note, I said "work", not "work well", as you will need to turn off all of the eye candy and set it to a low resolution.

So, besides the video card (single or multiple), what add-in cards are in your system?

I use Wifi card (due to necessity) and Sound card (more of a curiosity).

The sound card (Xonar DG) and and my onboard definitely sound different, but conveniently I prefer the onboard for my 2.1 speakers and the Xonar for headphones, so I only have to switch the output device to change from speaker to headphones without needing to plug and unplug the 3.5mm jack.

I am considering getting a pair of better quality headphones and upping my sound card to external solution, but that's for another day, chances are I'll just up my headphones to HyperX Cloud Revolution and call it a day.

Xonar STX. Stopped using a NIC a couple years ago.

None in this Dell t3500. Soundblaster and NIC in the Win98 retro gaming rig.

My NAS has an intel NIC and a 2 Port SATA card.

Inateck Superspeed 4 Ports PCI-E to USB 3.0 Expansion Card (For Oculus Rift)
Creative Sound Blaster ZxR PCI-e

Right now, the only add-in card is a PCIe SSD..... video card migrated to my daughter's computer and I'm relegated to on-board video for a while

My new mobo even has wifi.
Only thing that could be necessary is a better sound card if you care and have the setup to hear te difference.

My onboard audio even if quality asus is crap compared to a decent sound card when you listen to music with an amp and speakers. But i dont really care anymore because i dont listen to music anymore on the computer and i dont even game anymore...

I would say my sound even comes from the video card: htpc --> hdmi--> receiver --> tv ; workstation --> hdmi --> monitor --> optical --> soundbar , but I guess if you use headphones or a analog connection the onboard could matter

Xonar DG.

Sound Blaster ZxR
10Gb dual port fiber NIC
soon to have an Avermedia video capture card. Not sure what computer I will actually put it in.

Xonar DGX
Viewcast Osprey 230 analog video capture card

Four Asus Xonar's to two Creative Z's....

That's quite telling heh.

Two more video cards and a sound card in my main PC.

WiFi and Ethernet card in the VM box.

RAID card in WHS2011 and Windows Server Essentials 2012

Dual NIC card in PFSense box

Like the original poster I've dropped all the addin cards about four years ago. Only video cards.

Used to have soundcard, nic, modem, firewire card. Other times USB or Sata or even IDE cards. None of that is necessary anymore for most enthusiasts.

SoundBlaster x-fi. My htpc has an external usb wifi adapter. Edited to show I can read, video card info removed.

Xonar DGX for my HD598's here as well. Onboard sound, even the newest ALC1220 sounds like a turd compared to the DGX with my headphones.

Also use an add-in PCI-E m.2 card sometimes and a USB 2.0 4-port hub card. Have a couple of things like my old sidewinder that don't like to be plugged in to USB 3.0+ ports.

Depends on the computer. The desktop? Only has video, only have the one x16 slot as it's a Mini-ITX board.

The fileserver box? It's got a Dell Perc H200 (x8 card in the x16 slot, flashed to IT mode), an Intel Pro1000 PCIe x1 equivalent network card (I think, shows up as an Intel 82574L) and of course video. (rather old card in a PCI slot, the cpu doesn't have onboard graphics)

Wireless AC card (usually disabled)
Intel 750 AIC SSD
Xonar STX
wish I had space for a RAID card, but the added cables wouldn't be pretty.

horrorshow said:

Four Asus Xonar's to two Creative Z's....

That's quite telling heh.

Click to expand...

Fairly certain I would've gone with another Sound Blaster if I wasn't on hardforum. (My second desktop has a older X-Fi card) The Asus Xonar isn't a perfect card, the biggest reason I got mine was the headphone amp.

Saturn_V said:

Fairly certain I would've gone with another Sound Blaster if I wasn't on hardforum. (My second desktop has a older X-Fi card) The Asus Xonar isn't a perfect card, the biggest reason I got mine was the headphone amp.

Click to expand...

I got my Xonar DG for $15 bucks at Microcenter because my Realtek ALC 888 is total garbage.

Although, I can't deny that [H]'s enthusiasm for Xonar's did play a part in my decision....

Really though, I bought it because Realtek's drivers and Skyrim's positional audio is just flat out broken. So, a simple fix for 15 bucks made total sense at the time.

extra USB 3.1 card with two external ports and a cable plug that adds two more USB 3.1 ports to my front panel headers. really wish they had multiple USB 3.1 headers on boards.

Thunderbolt card, PCIe M.2 card (better cooling/circulation for 1TB 960 EVO than the mobo m.2 slot allows) and an extra USB3 card (I need the extra two internal 19-pin USB3 connectors).

Parallel port so as to run a big-ass plotter.

-X-Fi Titanium HD. I still insist on having proper DirectSound3D/OpenAL hardware acceleration, and CMSS-3D Headphone beats the pants off of most virtual surround mixes I've tried, especially when the aforementioned APIs are used. The only thing that outclasses it is Aureal A3D, and we all know what Creative did to Aureal years ago...

Oh, and the old Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P I originally had it in had an atrocious Realtek ALC889A implementation, too hissy for headphones.

-Startech PEXHDCAP video capture card, bought for its ability to capture 240p RGB video from retro consoles. It can't handle 1080p60, though, owing to its PCIe 1.1 x1 interface.

I've contemplated replacing it with an Epiphan DVI2PCIe for its touted ability to handle 85 Hz signals (handy for older PCs and my Power Mac 6500, I'm sure) and resolutions up to 2048x2048, though the PCIe x4 requirement means losing all my x1 slots or gimping my graphics card's bandwidth and leaving four lanes unused.

Alternatively, I may have to save up my scratch for a Micomsoft XCAPTURE-1, which presumably won't handle anything above 60 Hz, but runs off a single USB 3.0 port and captures 240p per Micomsoft tradition.

-I don't have one yet, but I'm contemplating a USB 3.0 controller card to ease the stress of running four Oculus Rift sensor cameras off of my built-in USB root hubs. A cheap single-controller card would let me get away with using a x1 slot, but any quad-channel USB 3.0 or USB 3.1 card kicks up the requirement to x4, which brings the aforementioned issues about lack of PCIe lanes to mind.

Needless to say, I have plenty of good reasons to use those extra expansion slots, enough to make me want more PCIe lanes. Chances are good that my next build will be 40-lane Intel HEDT just because of all of this, not to mention the general uptick in NVMe SSDs demanding PCIe 3.0 x4 interfaces.

An Asus WiFi card and a Creative Audigy 2ZS. Motherboard doesn't have onboard sound and this was the only card I had.