I know there are a thousand variables and no precise answer. But since I'm not very hardware savvy, I'm wondering, by having onboard sound as opposed to a dedicated sound card, how much video performance am I sacrificing (bleeding off of the CPU)?Forgive me if that question wasn't framed well. I think you know what I mean. I just want to know if there would be any discernable performance increase if bought a sound card and installed it.Thank you,Steve

On-board sound has came a long way, but I still use a Soundblaster X-Fi. I have not done any extensive testing but have ran some games with and without the card for troubleshooting purposes. I think it depends on a lot more variables than just with or without, in otherwords how fast your processor is to begin with, ram etc. If I had to take a ball park stab at a question that is difficult at best not knowing your system specs or what card you were planning on buying I would guess anywhere from 3-7fps on average. However your sound quality and positioning will improve. I heard details with my X-Fi playing Battlefield 2 that I never heard with my older Audigy 2zs card. :)Blaze

I tested years ago with Sound Blaster live versus crappyo onboard sound of the day and measured neglible performance and sound difference in FS. Sound cards have advanced, but so has onboard sound, so I'd hazard a guess that this situation hasn't changed much.Gary

I did extensive (for a lay person :() testing of an audigy II vs onboard sound on my ASUS P4G8X Deluxe w/ 3.06Ghz processor--so this was about 3 years ago. At that time on that equipment, using an audiobenchmark utility to assess for CPU utilization, there was about a 3 - 10% (average of around 5-6%) advantage of processing thru the audigy II versus the onboard realtek or I forget what particular chipset was involved, and that was with current drivers for each and WITHOUT any effect processing. I'm guessing it is less now and I would probably bag a separate audio card, especially with multicore solutions today.