I just inserted an Asus Xonar SE ($69) sound card. It works in a new Intel i5-12400 boxen. I spend enough time in the office to listen to sound and music through a more than decent Yamaha / Dynaudio ...

It may not be the first part of your setup that you think of upgrading, but getting one of the best USB sound cards for gaming can actually make a world of difference when it comes to audio quality.

Unlike the cheaper Xonar DS, the Xonar DX card uses an Asus AV100 audio processor. It's another rebadged C-Media CMI-8788 OxygenHD, so there's no practical difference between the quality of this audio ...