Sound card or no Sound card? Just a question to see, how many of you guys are using sound cards in their rigs? I have a couple spare SB live's kicking around and was wondering if it'll really make a difference against the Nvidia sound on my Asus board and the sound on most motherboards nowadays? Should I throw it in the box or is it a waste of a pci? Lemme kno.
I would say it depends what kind of person you are: 1. You listen to Music, watch DVD's, play games through normal pc speakers every once in a while, and where and when and how it sounds doesnt bother you! In that case dont bother! 2. You are a hardcore gamer and want to get that extra 0.0000189% extra fps due to some halfdigested Creative soundcard propaganda, and end up buying the latest and greatest of their offerings, cause even though I cant stand them, they are pretty good for having the latest technology when it comes to games! I guess once more you woul dbe using some kind of pc speaker setup, but as you are then goign to be going into a 5.1 or something.1 setup, you can't expect too much quality anyway (for music that is) 3. You are a big fan of listening to music, and have a seperate amp and speakers in which case you should definatly get a decent sound card to compliment this... ...now you choose!
Thanks alot Felix. I don't listen to music or watch movies, play games but on crappy speakers. I guess I wanna know, will throwing in the sound blaster live help free up some of my other system resources or is it really not necessary?
If you have crappy speakers then you are going to see no gain from using a add-in sound card. It's not worth the effort imo!
I'm thinking about picking up a 5.1 speaker set tho.. there's one on sale.. Prolly grab it on Fri. I guess I'll test the card and let you guys know how it sounds.
I couldn't afford an X-fi and a decent set of speakers to go with it when I built my rig so I decided to stick with on-board sound untill I could get my hands on a top end soundcard and speaker set. I'm about to buy a second monitor and I'm just wondering if it's worth grabbing a cheapy Audigy SE OEM card or something at the same time untill I can get an X-fi (or whatever is good when I get one, I may hold off for a while on that front, it seems PCI-E is beggining to take over). I'm not particularly interested in having improved audio but improve my performance in games since I've heard on-board sound can put alot of load on your CPU. So I'm thinking that I could replace my Realtek AC'97 onbard sound with something not too expensive (~£20), would an Audigy SE be ok or is the a better value for money option? Also, would it be really worth the extra money for the boost in performance and sound quality?
From post six is merged from another identical thread subject. Just to keep things in one place. Incidentally... I can't rave enough about the X-Fi. If you're a Hi Fi fan.. you need one!! Just don't install all the bloatware.
Which one specifically? I've been considering the Fatality FPS - seeing as I'd be using it primarily for gaming... but it costs a lot more than the Xtreme Music, and I'm wondering if you can tell enough of a difference between the two cards [in a gaming environment], to justify the price difference between the two cards?
If you have cheap speakers then dont even bother with a good sound card, if you do have decent speakers then go with a creative audigy or comparable card. It sounds so much better than onboard sound even the older card that I have sounds so much better than my newer onboard sound.
It's the same card.. the Xtreme music is JUST the card tho, whereas the Fatality has the front panel for phones, mic and has an infra red control. Unless you're planning a media centre PC, I would suggest you save cash and get the Xtreme music version. IR is a nice touch, but that front panel is fugly as hell, and I don't want it making my rig look ugly. It's your call.. the actual cards are the same however. [edit] As speefreak says tho... unless you are a Hi Fi fan, and have good speakers, and amp, get teh Audigy... that's a great card also.
Which one do you reccomend? I'm looking at the Audigy SE card as it's pretty cheap. Oh yeah my speakers are Altec Lansing AVS300 or something like that, got them a while ago, just stand-ins for now. I'm considering getting a really good set like a gigaworks set, would an X-fi be wasted on a set like that? Would a decent Audigy card be good enough to get the most out of a decent set of PC surround speakers? I'm assuming you mean PC->AMP->Good set of Hi-fi speakers when you talk about speakers in the above post, if so then it's probably best to have an X-fi in a HTPC and have a Audigy for a gaming rig with PC speakers yeah. Oh and can you reccomend me a set of decent PC speakers, I'd quite like a 5.1 kit (I think 7.1 is a bit overkill, especially as I don't really have a room where I can put them for optimal surround sound goodness). (Sorry this post is structured like a ummmm poorly structured house and is a bit hard to follow, but I'm tired so meh )
If youre going to listen to music, I can guaruntee that the audiophiles will jump in and scream at you to just buy a hifi setup - I'll save you the grief and tell you that now instead If you want decent music speakers, consult Dom_ - he's arguably the most informed audiophile on bit-tech. As for gaming, creative cards are usually the best. Basic Audigeys dont compare to Soundstorm though imho.
Yeah I would've said the same thing a while ago, couldn't see the point at all of an HTPC over a decent hi-fi setup, if I had the money, the only reason I would buy an HTPC would be a Sky+/TiVo box and the rest would be...*goes on talking about all the stuff he would buy, each item having a pause between for gazing and drooling* I think I might just save myself some money and buy an Audigy or whatever and a half decent set of speakers.
...half decent being the key worde! ...let me put it to you this way, for all those using ~250pounds (plus or minus whatEver) speaker kits (5.1,7.1) for the pc do not need to worry themselves about which soundcard to get, as you are most likekly going to be gaming anyway, so any of the standard creative crapp should do you nicely... ...if you actually listen to music a lot yourself, you will know why not to buy a creative soundcard, and you wouldnt be asking this question...not that I want to sound like an arrogant asshole, but this question must have been asked sooo many times over the years, adn the answer has still not changed!!
If you have some money and are not afraid of spending a little extra i would say go for the X-Fi Fatality, because only the Elite pro, and fatality models have X-Ram. X-ram is onboard memory on the soundcard to process the signals faster, without stealing power from the CPU. second thing is, the old soundcards (before X-Fi) plays 32 sounds in games such as Battlefield 2, where the X-Fi card plays 64 sounds, you can litteraly hear the difference when you play games. the negative about X-Fi: you can't connect Headphone and Mic plugs from the front, you can only connect I/O Drive..
...soo...the onboard memory on the soundcard stops the soundcard from stealing power from the cpu....riiiight! as a n00b when it comes to this, could you explain this to me?? oh yeah, and what the actual differences are (ie. fps before and after!)
