Sound cards and video cards... are they actually necessary??? What do they do???

mani1987 · 06-07-2009, 08:46 AM

I am not a techy kind of person so I really don't know anything about this...

I am planning to buy a PC in the near future, I was wondering that should I add a sound and video card to it or not. I was thinking I shouldn't because a motherboard has a video memory on it too, right? And there are sounds when you plug your speakers in...

What do these things actually do which the built-in the motherboard can't???

Thanks!

PRIYA · 06-08-2009, 12:11 AM

Some motherboards (usually the cheaper ones) have on-board video and sound.

If you are just using the machine for surfing websites and listening to music, they are probably sufficient.

If you are using the machine for more demanding purposes (gaming, cad-design, music recording/mixing) then you should consider upgrading to better hardware. Some motherboards have both onboard sound/video - but have the ability to disable these and plug in cards. (Almost all of them have PCI slots for putting a sound card in). The cheaper boards might not have a video card slot - so you would be stuck with onboard video.

The high-end motherboards don't have any onboard sound/video - it minimizes the amount of circuitry on the board since people that buy the better stuff are usually going to configure the system the way they want.