Remember a time when the latest Soundblaster soundcard release would be the big talking point?

It was frowned upon to use any inferior built in audio.

The cards would promote 5.1 surround sound and support for higher quality codecs and frequencies. Loads of different PC specific surround speaker setups were on the market.

But now you don't even see audio get a mention.

Strange how something as important as audio no longer gets featured. I know new soundcards do still exist, but is onboard motherboard audio really that good these days? With all the fuss about graphics cards, and the rest of the hardware build, the lack of audiophiles just seems a bit odd.

I can only assume that because audio is pretty much all digital these days it isn't an issue, especially if it's going through HDMI. Plus many gamers just use bluetooth headphones these days.
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I already considered buying one but I definitely don’t see the point, like every reason you mentioned why it’s probably not needed. If you wanna use your PC as a sound studio and mix stuff, then it makes sense.
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I think modern audio ADC and DAC ICs got so good and so cheap that for most purposes there is nothing wrong with integrating it onto the motherboard, unless you have some very specific requirements.

I have an SFF PC nowadays so if I wanted a sound card it would have to be external.
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I was an unadulterated Sound Blaster wh0re back in the day, but Creative had issues with their drivers on virtually all chipsets other than Intel. VIA, AMD & SIS chipsets were a nightmare, with AMD the worst of them.

The day I stopped using Creative Sound cards was only because Motherboards we're becoming much better in Quality of sound & if you need to up the power, just hook up the Optical out to a good Amp.

To save clutter, I bought a Creative Sound Blaster katana - It's a cracking sound & everyone who's heard it say's the same.

I still prefer my Sennheiser headphones for gaming though. Whilst the sound bar does throw sound very well, the headphones are just so very positional.
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It's strange Soundblaster never got directly involved with onboard audio chipsets. They could have cashed in with that.

I would only consider investing in a dedicated card again for professional work with video editing and post production work. But even for this onboard is fine because the actual audio is digital so not affected by the audio device playing it back.

But of course if you are listening via wireless bluetooth then you are not even using the onboard audio. Just the bluetooth drivers for your headset.
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Sound cards, there's a blast(er) from the past.
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