How can you tell if a sound card is capable of doing some of its own sound processing and taking the load off the CPU? What sort of "specs" signify this? Thanks.
That depends on what you want offloaded. A good rule of thumb (not an absolute law though) is that the larger the PCB, the more processing power it has.
The best thing to do is to look up a few models that you can afford and read their reviews.
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