Hi I noticed in a recent article that sandy bridge motherboards may not support PCI expansion slots. I'm currently looking at buying a sound card and was looking at the xonar DG, this card is PCI. The problem i'm seeing is that I was looking at building a new rig in a couple of months time after I have a chance to look into sandy bridge tech. Should I buy a PCI-e sound card like the DX to be safe? I'm willing to spend the extra if it will save me in the long run but as it stands the DG is the perfect card for me. I may have misunderstood the article but will wanting a PCI expansion slot in the future really cut down on the choices I have when looking to upgrade to sandy bridge? Thanks for any advice.
PCI is still commonly used, I personally would be surprised if there were not many sandybridge boards with PCI, considering most current motherboards still come with IDE ports! who uses those? There will still be some benefit to waiting though, as there are still plenty of things we dont know about sandybridge. Hope that helps...
well the DX is over twice the price so it's enough that it makes a difference for something that isnt as good for my setup, unless you can show me an alternative to the DX. In fact, thinking about it, will the onboard sound of most boards by then be good enough that i dont need a soundcard? Also i had a problem with buzzing from my previous sound card probably caused by electromagnetic interference, can anyone tell me if the DG/DX has protection or is less susceptible than cheap cards. None of the pictures show them with a shield.
The DG/DX are low-end cards, there's no shield on them. I just looked it up and they really do cost twice as much... that's weird, as the difference between the pci and pcie versions of their higher end cards isn't even 10%
Sandy bridge motherboards have already been revealed. Most of the mid rage and low end boards do inclide PCI. Only the super high end boarda with like 6 PCIe slots have completely lost PCI.
Do you think i will have the same problem with the buzzing then or is it unlikely? If I went for the PCI-e then the card would be about 2 inches further from my GPU if that would help? thanks, thats pretty much all i wanted to know It's about the same price I have for them, and that price you show is after some form of rebate. I'm also from the UK so would have to pay stupid amounts for postage.
10$ mail in rebate.. but that's not the point.. the point was that both are the same price, and not the so call double price, just for PCI-E.
A Sound Card isn't like a graphics card and only kept for one build as audio doesn't get more demanding in the way games do. Hence you will probbally be keep it for Sandy Bridge and at the rate Intel are going for there socket after that aswell. You wouldn't be getting the same value out of an PCI as a PCI-E in the long run. don't be penny wise and pound foolish.
Those aren't the cards I was comparing though. The DG is £22 and the DX is £45-50 so it is double if I wanted to go for PCI-e over PCI. But it's about £30 extra for features I dont need. If I can get a decent sandy bridge MOBO that supports PCI I think its worth saving the money as its not just a few pennies. I am buying the ROCCAT Kaves which are 5.1 and then my speakers are 5.1 so I literally wouldnt be making use of the cards features apart from the PCI-e. Maybe theres a cheaper 5.1 PCI-e option im unaware of?
Almost all SB motherboards will support at least one PCI slot through the use of a third party chip, as i understand it most of them will use Silicon Image for that.
