ITX - sound card?

[Curunen]

I can't seem to find much info on this, but probably the only thing preventing me from downsizing from matx to itx is the lack of space for a dedicated internal sound card (assuming pcie slot is filled with a video card).

Coming at this from a gaming and music listening perspective (so not keen on sticking with onboard), what are the options? Use an external usb sound card?

I'm not a keen or knowledgable audiophile (read: a bit of a noob at sound equipment so go easy on me! ), but I am an amateur musician and do like to enjoy good quality sound/music.

 

[jeremyshaw]

nfb-12, HUD-MX1, etc. All good external USB DAC/headphone amps that are around/better than most/all internal soundcard. nfb-12 can also accept coaxial or optical S/PDIF input for even higher bandwidth digital audio content (and optical S/PDIF provides the most electrical isolation possible from internal computer EMI, gound, etc).

 

[fr500]

Also many USB headphone sets have their own audio codec so no need for a discrete sound card

 

[Curunen]

Ah, will look into that jeremy. Going to take some reading.

In any case 90% of the time I'm using my senn HD595s, at the moment with a xonar, but will look into an external amp/dac setup.

How about sound processing for say video games - I take it this is all handled by the cpu then, and the signal fed out to the external equipment? I'm only casual with this stuff, but is there a noticeable effect on performance?

Thanks.

 

[jeremyshaw]

not in a modern computer (i.e. Phenom II/Core 2 or newer) Even if it did, most games are written for consoles, or without native soundcard calls (i.e. written on Vista/7 arch), so they are already CPU processed to begin with.