External sound cards are a great way to spruce up your computer’s sound playback capabilities if you have limited space inside your computer case. They are especially a super useful for laptop and small form factor desktop computers.
Based on the sound card interface, external sound cards can be generally classified into two common types: the USB sound card and the FireWire sound card.
* USB Sound Card
The USB sound card uses the Universal Serial Bus to communicate with your computer system. You can plug this PC sound card to any free USB port on your computer. Depending on the layout of your computer chassis, USB ports can be located in front of your case or at the back.
You will need USB 2.0 or Hi-Speed USB to get your modern USB external sound cards to work without performance bottlenecks. The speeds supported by the older USB 1.1 technology may be inadequate. USB 1.1 can also transfer data at a rate of 12 megabits per second, but USB 2.0 can transfer around 480 megabits of data per second.
The USB is a very popular port. Apart from external sound cards, it can accommodate other PC computer hardware devices like external hard drives, USB flash drives, computer mice and keyboards, printers and scanners. It is not uncommon to run out of USB ports. If you do, you can get a USB hub which you can plug into a free USB port. The USB hub can give you extra USB ports to accommodate your other USB devices.
* FireWire Sound Card
The FireWire sound card requires a FireWire port on your laptop or desktop computer to function. Like USB, FireWire has two interfaces — the FireWire 400 and the FireWire 800. FireWire 400 has a theoretical bandwidth of 400 Mbit/s, while FireWire 800 supports speeds of 800Mbit/s. This makes FireWire 800 substantially faster than USB 2.0.
Buying a Sound Card
If you are buying a computer sound card to enhance your movie viewing experience in your pc, you can get a surround sound card which is designed to support Dolby Surround sound technology and 3D environmental audio. Most of these cards are sold with speakers since you will need specialized speakers to get the most of the sound card’s performance.
Your budget is also important if you are buying a computer sound card. The basic sound card can cost you no more than $20 while the higher end sound cards with surround sound support can be more than $200. If you are buying a computer sound card, stick to your budget and do not waste on features that you are not going to use.
The most important factor that you need to consider when buying a computer sound card is your computer’s specifications. It would be a waste to spend on hundreds of dollars on expensive cards when your computer is not even capable of supporting that feature. For sound cards to perform at their best, you should have a matching CPU that is powerful enough to produce your desired results.