JVS Computers©

      12/11/2010

Most of the time there is a sound sub system built into the motherboard.  This built in system is typically good enough for all but high end game systems.  It can be upgraded, if you wish, pretty much 100% of the time.

One word of caution!  It isn't a bad idea to ask around for any known incompatibilities with other components of either your motherboard or the sound card you would like to add.  Recently, there has been a lot of reports of problems existing between SoundBlaster Audio sound cards and motherboards with VIA chipsets.

The sound card also very often comes with a very important port, for a game pad!

Sound cards are often rated by how many "voices" they can produce.  The better cards support 5 or 6 channel speaker systems and Dolby sound.