Think I've found the God of all sound cards. Seriously, take a look at what it packs. That thing is very powerful. But can it seriously impact performance that much? Seems kinda iffy to me
technically speaking couldnt a sound card improve fps if it took more audio load off the CPU ? edit: oh, and btw, who can tell the differance between an audigy 2, and generic sound from an nforce2 mobo ? not me, i ask in seriousness, cause i ehar NO differance. maybe its cause i listen to the music rather than sound quality, i dunno :S
True, but nowadays I Seriously doubt that its going to be much better than "enter sound card here". Nevermind the fact it won't be many fps anyway If you had it as a replacement from onboard sound in a slightly slower system, you'd probably reap the benefits then, I would think.
it wont be many fps but for some reason people will pay hundreds of pounds to get from 100 to 200 fps in a game. from a marketing standpoint its an amazing idea because all the people with more money than sense go out and buy it when its ridiculously expensive.
What are you listening to said sound cards via? Could be the answer to why you can't tell a difference. Otherwise
Your joking, right? I can tell the difference between my onboard (A7N8X-E Deluxe) and my SB Live card on rather cheap speakers (Logitech z-640). And yes, thats just while listening to music or playing games
as for performance issue, a lot of onboard sound cards take a terrible amount of CPU time, often hard to measure, but say an A'97 that was playing PCM music, i'd expect a performance boost of about 10% on a uni CPU system. Quality of onboard sound depends a lot on the board, i've heard some really ok quality on board sound cards, and some that are just plain dire.
The onboard AC97 has been hit or miss from my experience. I hope this new card pwns and i can upgrade from my old Audigy 2 Platinum ZS.
I doubt there's much difference in audio fidelity between the onboard AC97 and a SB Live! (or even an audigy, though I don't have one of those): They're both pants. Which is fine for games but come on, you can't expect to play a CD on your PC and for it to sound as good as an actual sound system. Even my cheapo panasonic portable mp3/cd player has *far* superior quality to either sound card in my PC. X-Fi? Doesn't really have the same ring to it as "Hi Fi" does it? Interesting piece of info: Does anyone know what "Hi-Fi" stands for? I'll tell you: High Figh. God I love "Look around you"
I didn't click the link, but I read the URL. Tis a Creative card, which means it's overpriced and underpeforming. Try this for starters, and move your way up that product line. Less than half the price (and you can get it for $70 on Newegg, iirc), and will beat the snot out of anything Creative
5.1, shmive shmoint shmon. I was talking about actual music. Most home cinema setups have (relatively) low grade audio systems which are absolutely fine for DVDs etc. Most decent PC soundcards are also fine for this purpose, I don't dispute that. Zephyr has the right idea: M-audio make extremely good PC soundcards, Creative are aiming at the mass market.
Really? How? I thought that this was not possible. It could guess, but how accurate will it be? Isn't that like trying to turn a 640x480 webcam pic into a 1600x1200 image and expect it to look any good?
IIRC the M Audio cards use CPU power to do its processing, therefore defeating the reason to buy a sound card in the first place.
Exactly, It's possible to fool your brain into thinking it sounds good by actually further reducing the audio fidelity. I'm gonna shut up now before I start sounding like a hi-fi nazi. And some people buy their soundcards to get a good quality output, not save clock cycles.
Uuuuh no. Simple as that. They use a VIA sound processing chip, iirc, and any Creative card isn't going to hold a candle to even the cheapest M-Audio card (which is what I linked to, the least-expensive card) in terms of sound quality. Creative cards flaunt things like EAX compatibility for games, when EAX is a Creative-invented "codec" (whatever it really is, software implementation of sound) in the first place. Creative also flaunt things like their trademark Audigy logo with "113dB SNR 24-bit/192kHz" on it, when their cards don't truly output at that quality. And who said the only reason to buy a sound card was to save CPU power? I want a sound card so I can get decent sound, not to save CPU power...It doesn't take up a noticeable amount of CPU clocks anyway, you're not going to lose your precious 1 or 2 frames per second In short, Creative inflate their cards and advertise them as much better than they really are, and price rediculously higher than what they're worth. It's not the "OMGGOD" of sound cards, it's the highest model in a horrid line of sound cards from a company that needs to back out of the sound card market
im just going to pipe in and say that while theyre doing quite well on the DAP market as far as quality, theyre only out to make a buck in the sound card market... just looking at that page throws off the red flags. its all marketing. theyre overhyping. ffs they have a countdown til the next time they release more info on it? its all promises tbh. no card can put back into audio what is lost in the encoding process of mp3s. it just isnt possible. and i can guarantee you this thing is going to cost an arm and a leg.
