Did you know a small piece of hardware is more important to listening to music on your computer than speakers? That small piece of hardware is called a sound card or audio card and it's much more important that you think. Sound cards are nifty pieces of hardware that makes all those pretty sounds come from your speakers. Without a sound card, you would never be able to listen to anything.

Uses of sound cards can basically be divided into three main categories: People who want to watch DVDs or listen to music on their computer, those who want to hear every little audio bit of the latest video game, and those people who want who want to make and mix their own music on their computer. All three of these things can be done on your OE soundcard but you'll be missing out on a lot of sound quality.

The role of audio for your computer is increasing with the popularity of Ipods, music streaming, the digitalization of music and home theater systems being run through PC's. That's a lot of music and sound quality to be wasted by using an outdated or overwhelmed soundcard. With all these different uses for your computer, here is a list of the best PC audio cards that you can use for your desktop PC.

• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum - The Creative Company has been involved in the accelerated PC audio hardware market since its beginning. Now, they are one of the last and only companies to offer any type of hardware acceleration in a PC audio card with their latest X-Fi line. Their Platinum model is not the best model around but it does offer a lot of features, including a multimedia remote and an inter-connect box allowing for audio connections on the front your desktop computer.

• Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic - This is the one for those looking for high quality computer audio for gaming, movie watching or audio creation but don't need any add-ons which normally come with expensive X-Fi models. It comes with the same audio processor as some of the more expensive models do so it can still perform tasks like sampling rates, surround sound up-mixing, surround simulation and 24-bit Crystalizer. This is without doubt a great choice for those wanting a better feel in their gaming experience.

• Auzentech Xplosion 7.1 - Computers are quickly becoming a major and central component for home entertainment systems. The problem with this is that the majority of PC audio cards use individual audio connectors for each channel instead of a standard digital surround sound standard like Dolby Digital. The Xplosion 7.1 does just that. Its support of Dolby Digital Live allows the card to automatically encode audio from the computer to connect with a home theater Dolby Digital audio receiver for a high quality surround experience.

• Turtle Beach Montego 7.1 DDL - Much like XPlosion's audio card, the Montego DDL card supports the Dolby Digital Live for connecting to home theater systems, as well. Unlike the X-Plosion card however, the Montego offers both an input and output optical SPD/IF connectors giving it more flexibility. The prices are about the same as well as the Xplosion with all of the same features, so the choice really comes down to any driver support and connectors that you will need.

• M-Audio Revolution 5.1 - If you're not looking for any elaborate surround sound support or hardware acceleration but still want a reliable good quality audio card to replace your desktop's integrated audio solutions, the Revolution 5.1 is perfect for you. This is a great yet inexpensive audio card which works for music, movies and gaming.