Can Sound Affect Performance?

[Isolate]

I am currently using the onboard audio of my ASUS A7V333 MB to produce the music and sound effects for the games I play. However, in action orientated games such as Max Payne 2, or Soldier of Fortune 2, I get alot of "hiccups" and my frame rate drops drastically. Would it be wiser for me to invest in a sound card? Would it eliminate this problem I'm having?

My Current Specs:

AMD Athlon XP 2100XP
ASUS A7V333 MB
1024 Megs PC2700 RAM
80 gig IBM HD 7200 RPM
Geforce 4400TI 128megs

[meese]

If the onbaord sound uses processor recources, then yes getting a sound card is recommended. From my experience, motherboards with video and/or audio bulit in will lack in performance compared to systems with seperated video and audio cards. These cards have there own video and sound engines bulit in, so the processing is done there, without wasting processor resources.

[Darthgary]

Yep Yep Yep, on board is CPU dependant.

Any sound card is to a certain extent, a good card like the Audigy 2 is the least dependant.