rupesh wrote on Sep 9^th, 2009 at 11:17pm:

i also think there is one more thing everyone should try out...it has come to my attention that some sound cards actually make the processes run on the cpu itself, what you can do is try turning the sound off and see how many of you users get a few fps gain, then if you do, perhaps it's time to get a new sound card too..i didn't see any gain in mine but some have reported a gane up to 5-8 fps.

This is mostly true of soundcards that are integrated into the computer motherboard. A seperate soundcard is definately the way to go.