any difference in quality from a PCIe vs USB external sound card??

[TickleMeRifle]

of course this depends on the quality of the PCIe and USB sound card but in general does hooking up a USB sound card degrade the quality in any way compared to PCIe? or is there no difference?

[SundownKid]

I am guessing there is a difference, since USB compresses the audio data (for that reason USB mics are lower quality).

[TickleMeRifle]

Postat inițial de SundownKid:

I am guessing there is a difference, since USB compresses the audio data (for that reason USB mics are lower quality).

i really wont be using the external card's mic i'll just be using it to output to a reciever via the optical out port.

[_I_]

usb will be very limited bandwith
use a pci-e card or onboard sound card if you care about quality

[videogames]

A proper asynchronous USB device will not degrade sound quality, or compress the audio stream for that matter. A USB mic is NOT lower quality than a comparable analog microphone (unless talking about proper studio gear plugged into an interface); it's usually quite the opposite since they use their own ADC chip instead of relying on the onboard.

Plugging into optical will use the receiver's own DAC, so either onboard or a soundcard will make no difference. If you don't have an optical port in your motherboard, any cheap soundcard with one will suffice. If you're only using stereo audio, a good external DAC with RCA outs is a better idea than one of these "gaming" sound cards.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

If your Motherboard Onboard Audio doesn't have Optical Out, I would suggest this:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0044DEDCA
Under $60 and supports both analog and digital 5.1

[TickleMeRifle]

awesome thnx for the replies guys

Postat inițial de Bad-Motha:

If your Motherboard Onboard Audio doesn't have Optical Out, I would suggest this:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0044DEDCA
Under $60 and supports both analog and digital 5.1

finally made a decision and decided to go with this...im assuming its just an updated version of the card you suggested above?: http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Performance-Headphone-Integrated-Microphone/dp/B00EZT7RE4/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8

the reason why im using an external usb sound card is i have no PCIe slots left and my onboard sound is only so-so in quality

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Ok yes good find, that is actually newer than XFI so that should do very well, and supports the same features (both Analog 5.1 & Digital Optical Out) so that would be good idea, just use that an run an optical cable between that and your Receiver.

If you do purchase that; here are the latest Drivers.
http://support.creative.com/Products/ProductDetails.aspx?catID=1&subCatID=207&prodID=21712&prodName=Sound%20Blaster%20Omni%20Surround%205.1&subCatName=Others&CatName=Sound+Blaster&VARSET=prodfaq:PRODFAQ_21712,VARSET=CategoryID:1

[OLDMAN🎅]

esata external sound card