Sorry about flaming last night, but my **** rig died for no reason and i was already annoyed, and the "chicken screaming" set me off. But as stated by guru, an on board sound card has many more things affecting it than just what its displaying like a video card would. A sound card produces sound, whether that sound is better or worse than a discrete sound card is purely subjective on the part of the listener and depends a lot on the speakers. While a video card, either can or can not handle the job being thrown at it.