So, benchmarking video, cpu, and ram has gotten too easy. I'm curious now about my audio hardware. I know that there's not a lot driving the audio card "industry" forward (not like gpus anyway), but I also know that there has been a lot of improvements made to onboard audio. So short of just listening really closely, how can a person determine if last year's expensive add-in audio card is better or worse than the onboard audio on their band new motherboard? (i'm leaving out specifics about my sound cards and motherboards because i'm hoping for a broader answer, so I can learn to determine this for myself next - and every - time). Thanks!

Outside of purchasing an expensive 'frequeny analyzer', I think you might need to be born with what audiophiles call 'Golden Ears'.

Below are two links to specs. You compare the two for yourself. http://www.realtek.com.tw/products/... http://www.soundblaster.com/product... The link below is for all Creative Labs sound cards. Clink on a product and you will get a new screen with a specs tab. http://www.soundblaster.com/product... Edit Keep in mind the biggest advantage of an add in card is that they don't use CPU cycles like integrated. When playing sounds while using the computer for other CPU intensive tasks there can be a slight hiccup from time to time. This is somewhat mitigated by overly fast processors. IMO Creative Labs makes resource hungry hardware that is over priced. But that is just me.