No, onboard analog outputs suck. By using a digital connection such as USB (or S/PDIF, Firewire, Thunderbolt, HDMI, DisplayPort etc.), you're passing a digital bitstream and moving the digital to analog conversion to an external device that usually has a much better signal/noise ratio.

Even the cheapest onboard sound chipsets can pass a perfect digital bitstream along via S/PDIF, even if the analog components are shit.

And an external DAC doesn't have to cost more than ~$30: http://www.amazon.com/D03K-Dig...

(No referral link)

A good DAC can be had for less than $30 now: http://www.amazon.com/D03K-Dig...

If your motherboard has an S/PDIF (coax or TOSLINK) output, get one of those and enjoy noise-free sound.

There's no need to spend that much. A lot of motherboards have S/PDIF outputs, and with a good coax/TOSLINK DAC (like the ~$40 FiiO D3), pristine noise-free stereo sound is both easier and cheaper than buying an expensive sound card.

Some onboard sound is noisy through the analog outputs, although I guess it's only really noticeable in headphones. For normal PC speaker e-mail notifications and whatnot, it doesn't matter.

But luckily, most motherboards have S/PDIF outputs via coax and/or TOSLINK that allow you to connect to an external DAC (like the ~$40 FiiO D3) or a reciever with digital inputs. Some all-in-one PCs and laptops (all Macbooks IIRC) have a combined headphone output and mini-TOSLINK jack, but even if they don't, you can do digital audio over USB, Firewire or Thunderbolt for not a lot of money. HDMI or DisplayPort can also transport sound, often a DAC in the monitor allows analog stereo output based on that.

The point is to remove the noise-sensitive analog parts of the signal chain from inside the PC, using a digital connection. For stereo sound, a dedicated sound card is completely overkill, when a $40 DAC and a $5 TOSLINK or coax cable will provide an even lower noise floor in real-life situations.

For surround sound applications, dedicated sound cards may still have a place, but using a digital connection to an AV receiver and letting it handle all the processing is a much better solution and integrates better with TVs, consoles etc.

Strictly speaking it's not 7 years in the exact same position. I have been 7 years with the same company, in 4 different functions under 3 different managers, but always with the same great colleagues, some of whom have been with the company for over 30 years.

I see a decent-paying job as a means to an end, a steady paycheck lets me have fun with motorcycles, electronics, music, movies, food, traveling, all of the things I enjoy in life. As long as the company is willing to pay me a decent wage, provide challenging tasks and projects (and with some of our applications nearing 30 years old, we see a lot of challenges), and a great social atmosphere among colleagues, I see no reason to change jobs. I also have a decent pension, premium healthcare on top of the national healthcare system and access to very competitively-priced insurance deals and so on. It's almost as cushy as an old-school government job, except I have to do some actual work sometimes.

ISTP, I would have no problem being alone with myself, there are plenty of exciting things to mentally figure out!

Tell that to the hard drive I switched for an SSD. I measured a drop from 33dB to 30dB measured right beside the PC during drive read/write. And that was with the harddrive mounted on rubber dampers. Most modern computers use large variable-speed fans that make very little noise.

It's true that modern hard drives are very quiet. Right up until they start seeking.

More or less every SSD on the market currently will saturate even a 6Gbit/s SATA connection, you don't have to buy the latest and greatest to achieve maximum possible transfer speed. If you put this SSD in a new PC today, the SSD will pretty much be the last component to be obsolete, save maybe the physical case itself. This situation is going to persist for some time, so I can easily see one of these drives being used for 10 years across various upgraded PCs. It'll keep up with faster CPUs and RAM, no problem.

Anyone can appreciate the speed boost (and silence!) an SSD brings, not just enthusiasts.

That's a pretty nasty duty cycle, wouldn't it be better to use a massive RAM disk instead, if you need that much constant I/O traffic?

For your average consumer or even professional user, pretty much any SSD on the market will easily outlast the rest of the PC, barring any catastrophic failures. There was a test recently that concluded that you're pretty guaranteed at least 500TB of writes before failure. That's a hell of a lot of data.

Why? Is it because you don't think they've "earned" the right to own a fancy phone, because they're poor?

Perhaps they saved for it for a long time. Perhaps it's their only link to the online world and their only source of entertainment (Youtube etc.). Perhaps it makes more sense to buy an expensive phone and keep it for years and years, than it is to buy a new low-end phone ever 6-12 months.

Please don't judge people for their actions, when you have no idea what led to them.

It's reasonably close, and I would think more people have experience with lead than with gold, at least in the quantities to easily demonstrate malleability.

From the very link you posted:

Gold is both highly ductile and very malleable.

Gold is also used for ultra-fine wires in sensitive test equipment, during chip development and research work, including chemistry and medicine experiments (gold substrates can be used for DNA analysis). Sure, gold is generally not used in large quantities for a single task, but it is a vital part of keeping the modern technological world running. There is ~50 milligrams of gold in a modern mobile phone, which isn't a lot, but it adds up with billions of devices in use.

Not to mention tooth fillings (gold is bio-compatible), arthritis medication and so on. It is also very easy to electroplate gold onto other surfaces, which makes it even easier to make use of its reflective properties.

Of course, the value of gold has been grossly inflated by jewelry manufacture because "ooh shiny", but that doesn't change the fact that it is a rare metal with numerous practical uses, some of them relatively low-tech. That is what helped cement its value throughout human history. On a very basic level, gold is denser and more malleable than lead, and non-toxic to boot. If nothing also, that alone would ensure a number of practical uses.

Gold doesn't corrode and it is the most malleable metal. Those two factors are alone make gold hugely useful for a number of practical uses. Literally every single connector in your PC (aside from the molex plugs) is gold-plated for corrosion resistance. Every single connector in every single cellphone is gold-plated for the same reason.

And then you get into the malleability and reflectivity. Because gold can be rolled so thin (or deposited on a mylar film) and still reflect infrared radiation, it is an essential material in designing heat shielding.

Gold does look pretty and shiny, but it does happen to have a lot of industrial and practical uses as well.