Hopefully selling my old PC (Check it in the marketplace) for ~£140. I also currently have a Corsair HS1A Analogue headset which I may be selling to a friend for £20. This leaves me with a budget of £160 in an ideal world. I need some advice, I know nothing about sound For this budget, what would you guys recommend for gaming use? I'd have my 5.1 speaker system for music and the headset for gaming. It doesn't need to spend the entire budget, I just want quality ^^
Asus Xonar cards are a good buy, I'm using a DX with a pair of Denon AH-D2000 headphones. I wouldn't touch creative cards with a bargepole.
I've seen stuff that the creative cards just randomly stop being detected. But would you say the difference in a DX is considerably noticable?
Yea. Go for a Xonar DG or DX (DG is PCI, DX is PCI-E). I had a Creative Fatal1ty Ti Pro which was amazing, but just suddenly stopped working. BSOD'd my PC and newer build. No idea why. Sold to KidMod, don't know if he got it working though. As for headset, find a good set of headphones as gaming headsets aren't really worth the money. Some nice sennheisers would be better than a gaming headset. You can get a decent mic from most places for about £10.
Well, thanks for all this ^^ I was looking at the DX but the price difference for the PCIe interface is rediculous :S (Unless theres another factor im missing). I'll have a look at them reviews and see about a DX ^^
The DG has a built in headphone amp, which is worth considering if you don't already own an amp. The DX doesn't.
Creative XFI is awful. I had the Titanium version... sold it after 6 months of BSODS every time I changed from one sound mode to another. Creative make all kinds of excuses why their hardware is unstable. Look at the user feedback on google shopping and you will see that about half the people with XFI's have problems with them. Even if you're in the 50% that doesn't suffer severe crashing then you still have to suffer the bloated drivers and control panel. Never again. I chose Auzentech X-Meridian 2G. It's an audiophile grade card with opamps you can upgrade for even better sound but the default sound is way above any creative card. For gaming it works without issue and you get up 7.1 surround... http://www.auzentech.com/site/products/x-meridian2g.php The control panel is small, fast and effective. No clumsy mode switching and no driver instability. It is without doubt the best soundcard I have ever owned. I paid £170 for it at the time but price is slightly lower now. http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/8417242/art/auzentech/x-meridian-7-1-2g-sound-c.html It is an incredible card for £105 pound. It has optical in out as well.
Never knew that.. Not that i've really looked it up. Might have to get one myself. Shame it is PCI though. As Tangster said, DS has a headphone amp. Personally i've only used the DX and found it amazing with the headphones I had plugged in. Overall I guess it just depends how the AMP helps with headphones. As for the PCI/PCI-E, I think it is more the fact PCI is slowly being phased out. My board at home only has 2 PCI slots and both are covered by a GPU. So I can't use them. Wow :O Nice card! I was looking at Auzentech cards well back when I originally got my X-Fi Ti. They weren't as expensive as that one though. Went for the Ti because it was on a Today Only for about £40 which was just under half price at the time. But agreed. Almost any sound card is better than the creative when it comes to software/drivers etc. The sound is still amazing, when it worked. I notice it now that I have to use onboard. I would jump on that card if it was under £100… but it isn't and it is PCI. So useless to me. DAMNN.
Nor have I. Quite good cards. Sexy-lookin', ultra-clean output. Drivers are fine, but let me dispel some rumours which will inevitably get mentioned (I've been in a lot of these thread...): * The last time Creative had major driver issues was at least five years ago. * The HD uses completely different drivers to the ones used for the other Titaniums. * It's the entire *software suite* that takes up 600MB - the actual *drivers* take up 50MB. You can just get by with only the drivers, but why would you? What, are you using some 1GB HDD you pulled out of a nineties Gateway? As for headphones: Would you trust Beyerdynamic, Audio-Technica or Ultrasone to make good RAM, a decent motherboard, or cool HSF? No? Then why would you trust Corsair, Thermaltake, or Asus to make good cans?
Most motherboards still have PCI slots and I wouldn't buy a mobo without unless there was a future release of X Meridian in PCIe.
I don't have PCI on mine D; Wishing I would have chose a different motherboard and got a 2nd SSD when I built my system now -.-
Just go for the DX then. You won't be disappointed. Along with some nice headphones, it'll be great. Just find a clip on mic if you need a mic and you're sorted. Theres the Zalman or Scan do a cheap speed link one, don't know what the speed link one is like though. Never used it.
+1 for Asus Sound Card. as to head phones: OPEN or ClOSED back? I am a big fan of AKG's as you can see in my sig. Head over to www.htfr.com/ for a reputable place to get head phones. These days you have to be really careful where you buy headphones as there are a lot of knock-offs from the Far east on the net. They look exactly the same as the originals but have very low quality "speakers" in them.