For that budget, what's wrong with your motherboard's onboard sound?

 

Onboard Sound wouldn't be Sufficient, I lost train of thought while posting this thread. What it will be used for (most likely) is gonna be for Guitar amp sims.

 

you are looking for something usb? or internal? pci expresss, pci?

 

Motherboards over the last two generations or so have stepped up their game with audio quality, especially on the higher tier boards. You may want to try your amp before looking for a sound card, if you haven't already

 

I'd grab a soundcard just to avoid realtek drivers. Hardware may be decent, drivers are shocking. Even the "pop" issue has been going on for years (realtek added a power saving to their drivers, ports are shutoff when not in use and depending on hardware you may here a slight pop just before audio starts when the ports go live) and even though it would be a simple fix (let people switch off the stupid power management), realtek just sit on their ass and ignore it.

 

I've known people with the "pop" issues before, my friend blew a set of speakers this way due to him never turning his volume down.

I might go with your suggestion, the reviews look amazing and honestly i feel as if it would be a better investment.

 

Thanks, I'll keep it in mind if I ever drop back to onboard (I bought a cheap used SBZ ages back). Hopefully it works on the latest chipset, as nothing else seems to (other than using windows default drivers) since realtek removed the toggle in the soundcard control panel .

Really not sure why realtek don't acknowledge it and just put the option in the sound control panel like they used to. No reason at all for the chipset to behave like that on a desktop. Shouldn't have to go digging around to fix their crap.