Dave, I bought a Creative soundblaster card and installed it in the computer when it was new and disabled the onboard sound in device manager. Not sure it was an improvement, the thought was just that it will use less system resources than the onboard. Don't use it for recording have a Tascam 16x08 USB interface for that. My computer is a Dell XPS tower, 6th Generation i7, 16GB, 2 - 1TB, Drives. One drive is dedicated strictly for my music project files. I replaced my whole system at once, Computer, Monitors, Microphones, DAW, Plugins, the works AND installed them in a different room in my house. I have had real headaches the past year. Learning everything and getting used to all of the new gear is not my idea of having fun with music. Frankly I think I got better recordings on my old 32 bit Gateway Pentium 4, XP, 1GB, ram. and Alesis MOdel1 MKII monitors. I have 2 sets of Yamaha HS8's and am having a real hard time getting used to them even though they get rave reviews for the price. It does not help when your trying to mix for smartphones, tablets, earbuds, car stereos, boom boxes etc. Everything is critical.