If you've got an outboard DAC and the USB to get to it, as far as I understand it, you're bypassing the onboard soundcard entirely -- so it shouldn't matter what it is (or whether you have one at all). Perhaps I'm missing something, but why not just skip it?
Guess it depends on the DAC. Recently bought a Headroom Total Bithead simply because it sounded like a cool idea. It's an outboard DAC / Headphone amp designed to run off of a computer USB port. It's totally plug and play -- plug it in and it configures itself to run as the default sound card as long as it's plugged in -- thus bypassing the onboard card. I'd previously been using the DAC on my card (which is a decent soundcard) and then running analog into an outboard headphone amp (an older Headroom), but the sound was pretty mediocre. Running USB direct to the Bithead is a lot better -- hardly perfect, but definitely a huge improvement. Perhaps not what you're looking for, but the concept (bypassing the onboard card alltoghether) sounds like the way to go to me....
Guess it depends on the DAC. Recently bought a Headroom Total Bithead simply because it sounded like a cool idea. It's an outboard DAC / Headphone amp designed to run off of a computer USB port. It's totally plug and play -- plug it in and it configures itself to run as the default sound card as long as it's plugged in -- thus bypassing the onboard card. I'd previously been using the DAC on my card (which is a decent soundcard) and then running analog into an outboard headphone amp (an older Headroom), but the sound was pretty mediocre. Running USB direct to the Bithead is a lot better -- hardly perfect, but definitely a huge improvement. Perhaps not what you're looking for, but the concept (bypassing the onboard card alltoghether) sounds like the way to go to me....