Well although almost all motherboards have integrated audio, that doesn't mean that there's no market for soundcards. Most serious gamers and audiophiles I know use Creative X-Fi cards as opposed to the integrated sound found on their motherboard. Although the integrated audio isn't terrible, the quality just can't be compared to a real soundcard like a Creative X-Fi.
The same thing goes for video, there are a fair number of low end motherboards which have integrated graphics, but it is not comparable to even the extremely low-end video cards. I just don't think video will be integrated into the motherboard with high quality anytime soon (5 years max :P)
most serious gamers use headphones... i dont know why you need an X-FI for "sound quality". Thats a dumb argument... creative is a bunch of overpriced over marketed crap... they *will* be obsolete.
Of course most serious gamers use headphones, I personally own $100 headphones just for gaming, (not that I'm proud to say they cost $100 :P), but if you've ever compared a set of high-end headphones, maybe the Sennheiser HD-280Pro for example, with integrated motherboard sound and with a Creative X-Fi or any somewhat high-end soundcard you WILL notice a difference, usually a considerably large difference in quality at that.
“An engineer explained to us that hundreds of ear impressions were gathered in the name of research, and while each one obviously boasted its own unique shape and size, one single characteristic remained uniform across the board: the entrance into the ear canal is not a perfect circle, it's an oval.”
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Well although almost all motherboards have integrated audio, that doesn't mean that there's no market for soundcards. Most serious gamers and audiophiles I know use Creative X-Fi cards as opposed to the integrated sound found on their motherboard. Although the integrated audio isn't terrible, the quality just can't be compared to a real soundcard like a Creative X-Fi.
The same thing goes for video, there are a fair number of low end motherboards which have integrated graphics, but it is not comparable to even the extremely low-end video cards. I just don't think video will be integrated into the motherboard with high quality anytime soon (5 years max :P)
most serious gamers use headphones... i dont know why you need an X-FI for "sound quality". Thats a dumb argument... creative is a bunch of overpriced over marketed crap... they *will* be obsolete.
Of course most serious gamers use headphones, I personally own $100 headphones just for gaming, (not that I'm proud to say they cost $100 :P), but if you've ever compared a set of high-end headphones, maybe the Sennheiser HD-280Pro for example, with integrated motherboard sound and with a Creative X-Fi or any somewhat high-end soundcard you WILL notice a difference, usually a considerably large difference in quality at that.