computer sound card and DAC questions

[deathwantsme]

I can't imagine integrated sound does a good job, so I'm wondering what I should be looking at for a sound card. I'd almost certainly be streaming movies and music off my computer. I plan on running all audio and video through a denon 4311, which also makes me wonder if the card matters at all. I assume everything stays digital until the AVR?

What specs of a sound card matter?
Does the computer/card have its own DAC? If so, how do you know better from worse without buying, waiting, installing, then listening?
Does DAC matter if the signal is going to an AVR?
Any brands/models of card to b3 certain to avoid? If so, how come?

 

[jinjuku]

If this is for home theater you will stream from the HDMI out on the computer. Most likely DD stream and let the 4311 do the decode.

 

[deathwantsme]

Does that mean a sound card would be unnecessary because the processing will all be done by the 4311?

 

[jinjuku]

Yeppers...

 

[deathwantsme]

Mostly umrelated to the topic, but does the same apply to video?

 

[jinjuku]

Mostly umrelated to the topic, but does the same apply to video?

The AVR won't do anything to the video. Video is a different beast entirely and all the action happens on the GPU.