I've never used a sound card so I have no idea if they're any good. I'm only asking due to a recent experience.

Before I got a new vid card about two years ago, I looked at a vid showing differences in card quality. I didn't see a difference, and it turned out it was because my card at the time sucked. Just now, I listened to a sound mod comparison for Thief 1, and again, I can't tell any difference. I don't know if my ears are too old, or my sound system sucks.

For those interested, here's the vid:
http://www.jaybmusic.net/Eidos/player.php?file=SEEP_Demo.mp4

So I'm wondering if once again, it's my tech that's too poor and I need an actual sound card, or if it's just me and thus no card will help. I only have two dinky speakers.

I use a Soundblaster Audigy card. Really, on modern systems, dedicated sound cards are wasted unless you're paying a LOT of money for a really high end one. Most of the sound matrixing and equalizer functions can be performed with software, so unless you're using the dedicated hardware with a good sound system, you won't notice a difference. You need a good sound card and a good sound output device to make any significant difference in the sound quality, unlike the early days of PC speaker and sound cards actually providing a noticeable upgrade to sound quality.

Unless you're an audiophile with a sound system to match, I don't see the point in owning a sound card nowadays. They were a must-have in the olden days, before sound chips came integrated on motherboards. These days, they're used for high-end playback and recording -- that's not something you'll get to experience on "two dinky speakers".

Try getting some better speakers.

I have a cheap little USB speaker I got from Adafruit, and its sound quality is significantly better than that of the internal speakers on my TV (and I believe monitor). (Note that the USB speakers function like a USB sound card, but you might be fine with more standard computer speakers. Also bluetooth is an option, though there may be issues with wireless interference or latency.)

One thing: Depending on your living situation, you might want to avoid speakers with subwoofers, as they tend to amplify the frequencies which most easily carry through walls.

There was a difference, for sure, but it was not significant.

I couldn't detect a difference with my 5.1 system and onboard audio.

I do use an old Soundblaster Z card. I mainly got it for easy HW acceleration of sound at the time (although now I understand you can also get EAX working with onboard cards). That being said, the biggest benefit I get out of it is a much better driver/software suite than the onboard chips - I can keep my speakers and radio-headphones plugged in and quickly toggle between the two without having to physically plug anything in.

New onboard sound cards might have this feature.

Generally, audio quality is better with the soundblaster as well, but hard to say whether it's at a level that makes a meaningful difference to me.

I used to use one years ago back when onboard was rubbish (both the chip itself plus poor filtering = I had one board where there was an audible 'squeal' in the sound output under CPU load), and of course that earlier era where there was no onboard audio / LAN / IO and everything was on ISA expansion cards), but that was years ago. These days I pick a board with a decent audio chip (typically the better ALC1xxx vs the cheaper ALC8xx, etc) and I've found it perfectly fine even with decent headphones. Far more thought has gone into onboard circuitry isolation these days vs years ago which makes the biggest different in improving onboard audio by far. For small cheap speakers I wouldn't bother with a discrete sound-card.

As for the Thief demo, if the point is software vs the ability to hear the fancy EAX / Aureal 3D Reverb, etc, effects I'm pretty sure that stuff now works just as well with onboard chips. I did test that OpenAL Soft thing out with the Thief 1-2 games, and the HRTF (3D spatial location via stereo headphones) seemed to be working fine. So I don't think it's the case where you'll need a discrete sound card to do it in "hardware" anymore.

I have a Soundblaster Z:
- Sounds better than my Realtek (Asus Z170A) through Audioengine A5+ speakers and AKG K240 headphones.
- ASIO driver
- EAX5 in a few games

In the age of USB, there are plenty of digital DACs & AMPs out there than give you high-quality sound if for some reason you are not content with your onboard sound options (which will in most cases be analog only). Why anyone would use a PCIe sound card these days is beyond me.

Because sometimes it doesn't need to take up extra space and a USB port. Why you don't know this is beyond me.

Or you could get a USB 3.x PCIe controller and host 4 DACs on a single PCIe slot :P. But now we're splitting hairs. My point was mainly that the bandwidth provided even by a PCIe 1X slot vastly exceeds what a soundcard needs these days. Seems like a waste to me, with my engineering hat on.

If you already have one, then sure, use it, but to explicitly buy an internal sound card in this day and age seems a bit overkill.

Is there any point in not just using the sound the motherboard has?

Not using the available (and not covered by a graphics card) PCIe 1x slots seems more like a waste to me.

And like I said, I have good speakers and I appreciate the improvement in sound quality (vs. onboard).

What do you enjoy, WinterSnowfall? It's overkill I tell you, OVERKILL! :-P

It makes squeaky troll sounds.