Having a sound card for dedicated sound processing is missing the point entirely. For at least 5 years CPUs have been fast enough for that. You want a sound card for these reasons: - High quality DAC (digital-to-analog converters) - Low noise level (no hiss in your headphones when not doing anything) - Low inteference (otherwise you can actually hear your current CPU and hard disk usage! Interesting, but irritating) Onboard sound cards are probably still crap on all three points, especially inteference. A nice pair of headphones is a total waste of money with an onboard sound card, because the low quality DAC, high noise level and inteference more than negate the headphone quality.