actually sometimes the sound card upgrade is necessary...
I have a GX1 which I am souping up, maxxing out. After I installed my first video card (9200SE), I began to experience sound-related problems. The onboard sound could not keep up with the card. This would result in various freezes and crashes, with even the graphics in some instances slowing down, in an effort to keep pace with the (slow) sound. CW is that sound can occupy up to %15 of your CPU resources. And any soundcard with a processor will work. Good, cheap upgrade, can get a nice card for $10 on eBay. (But yeah, I went for the Audigy 2 ZS, which is probably the most advanced card that I can install under Windows 98SE, until I upgrade the OS.)
QUOTE=PanicX]What's your PC specs? Maybe there's a better upgrade we can point out for $60.
Upgrading to a sound card IMO is only worth it if you're an audiophile with a good set of speakers. Even an Audigy would sound terrible through a pc speaker. And performance increases would be negligible at best, and for $60, there's probably something that would be a more valuable upgrade, particularly for performance.[/QUOTE]