What is onboard audio?

onboard alternatively referred to as integrated, onboard is a term used to describe a hardware component embedded into a circuit board. With a computer, onboard often refers to a device, like a sound card, network card, GPU (graphics processing unit), or WLAN, integrated onto the motherboard. Unlike expansion cards, users cannot remove these components from their computer. However, they can be disabled through software or CMOS setup or are automatically disabled when an expansion card is added to the computer. A computer motherboard supports audio via an onboard chip or an add-on sound card. Those that include a sound chip typically have expansion slots that allow you to install a more powerful sound card. Onboard audio boards cannot produce the audio quality that the dedicated sound card can. This is mainly because of space constraints.