Maximum PC

My brother wants me to help him get parts to build his first build, I would like to know what would be a great sound card for podcasting. I am not a audio guy, he's got a basic set up (mixers, pair of mics, software, etc.) He also would like to play games on it as well, but the main thing is being able to produce quality audio, I would also like to know if there is a need for adapters since he's got two mics.

podcasting and quality audio shouldn't even be in the same paragraph...

Anyhow, onboard sound is more than enough for basic audio processing; specially for podcasting. It really comes down to the quality of the mics he has. He can spend money on a sound card that has a good signal-to-noise ratio and that can accept 96khz or higher quality like the Creative X-Fi boards or the Asus Xonar's, but you have to be careful with creative boards since quite a few of the low end boards actually don't have a physical audio processor and its actually software emulated.

What mixers, mics and software does he have for this task?


And seriously, you can get by with a cheapo mic and use free audio editing software like Audacity to create simple podcasts.

from what it sounds like from you and his latest recordings, he doesn't really need it. I promised him to help him build, but he is depending on me to select the parts for him. Thats something I have to deal with. I am not much of a sound guy, I have played with audicity before and thats about it. He's got some good mics, the quality of his recordings have vastly improved with mics and mixer. thnaks for the advice.