[hello im sean]

is a sond card essentially a cheaply made but glorified DAC?

 

[Satellite_6]

Same thing right?
 
They both convert digital to analog.

 

[PianistOne111]

Sound cards often have DSP's and more inputs and outputs.

 

[Divvy]

Well, depends.
 
As stated above, the soundcard is a DAC just like an external device may be. Soundcards have a whole bunch of features such as DPS's like equalizers, Headphone virtualizations like Dolby Headphone etc. They pretty much all support at least 7.1 these days. They're also generally capable of full 192khz/24-bit, which can't be said for many expensive DAC's. You can get an <200$ soundcard that will rival and beat 1000$+ external DAC's and amplifiers in sound quality measurements and specifications. Basically, looking at it from a science and engineering perspective, you can get the practical effect of thousands of dollars worth of dedicated electronics with just a 180$ soundcard.
 
How they match up in subjective SQ is.. well.. subjective.