Will a soundcard's audio be higher quality than my onboard "HD" audio, and why?

[armysgt1]

My pc is in my sig. What is HD audio anyway?

 

[diduknowthat]

HD audio is a new standard of audio that Intel came up with a few years ago. It replaced AC97 as the new audio standard. You can read more about it at wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_High_Definition_Audio

And whether you'll see an improvement in sound quality really depends on your speakers. If you have your basic cheap computers speakers then you will most likely not notice any difference. If you have cheap surround sound speakers you also won't notice any quality differences, but you will probably notice better 3D audio effects in games.

 

[yoyojoe]

It also depends if your ears have been trained to hear certain frequencies otherwise higher quality speakers and sound cards wont matter