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I've come into possession of a few discarded computer parts from of an end-of-year used-parts clearout. Most of it has gone into my Linux box (508MB of RAM! Woo!) but there's some stuff left over.

One of the pieces is an Ensoniq PCI audio card from around 1999 I think. My question is: will installing this into a recent PC give better sound than on-board audio (thinking here that sound cards probably didn't evolve as fast as video cards), or it it a waste of time?

No.

I actually had to strip out my X-Fi XtremeMusic due to shoddy 64-bit driver support, and in many respects I actually saw (well, heard) superior audio from my onboard system. And the X-Fi line is much, much more sophisticated than anything from 1999.

Bounty wrote:I've come into possession of a few discarded computer parts from of an end-of-year used-parts clearout. Most of it has gone into my Linux box (508MB of RAM! Woo!) but there's some stuff left over.

One of the pieces is an Ensoniq PCI audio card from around 1999 I think. My question is: will installing this into a recent PC give better sound than on-board audio (thinking here that sound cards probably didn't evolve as fast as video cards), or it it a waste of time?

Double No

Onboard sound has advanced to the point it does an excellent job for 2.1 or headphone setups. Most even do a great job of 5.1 setups. Only 7.1 and above setups require it's own dedicated sound cards.

Thanks. It's staying in the backup box then.