Sound Card Performance

[srdsprinter]

Hello,

I'm considering picking up an audigy 2zs, or an audigy 4, or the cheapest x-fi from creative for my 4 year old dell running on onboard sound. I'm looking for any sound card in the 80-110 dollar range.

Recently when trying to use ventrillo, or in cs:s, my mic has not been working. Thinking it was my headset(a nice comfy plantronic set I bought a few years ago), I went to walmart and picked up a new cheap logitech headset. When I plugged it in I got nothing but massive amounts of static, and very very faint weak voice. I believe there must be something wrong with my onboard sound picking up the mic.

I was wondering if any of you have any advice in looking for a cheap sound card, and if it is true that I may pick up a few frames-per-second with an audigy? Is the increase in fps noticable? I might just save the $ as I'm planning on building a new computer this summer.

Thanks in Advance,

Stu

[Forbin]

http://www.anandtech.com/multimedia/showdoc.aspx?i=2338&p=10

In terms of framerate, you might pick up a couple of frames and I can assure you, you will not notice them. You will notice, however, the difference in sound quality. You won't be able to stand onboard audio again.

[P5YcHoM4N]

I'd say go for the X-Fi. Audio wise it kicks the crap out of the other cards you mentioned. I only got the X-Fi because the onboard on my EPoX was on the way out. Now nothing sounds even close to how amazing this thing does. And the audio crystalizer really makes audio sound even sweeter (unless you're playing a game with piss poor audio quality such as HL, in which case it just makes major distortion, so it's best to turn it off if you play games like that).

Plus if you combine it with a great set of speakers... <3 You'll never want to go back. I cry every time I hear sound (more so music) over cheap speakers and/or sound card now because it just sounds so flat.

[SladiVadi]

Hi!
Don't go for the Audiygy2 if you plan to hook it up to a multichannel hi-fi setup. The subwoofer output is to low. They fixed it with the Xi-Fi.


Vadi


edit:
If you only need stereo then an EMU 0404 is a MUCH better card.

[Roadie]

X-Fi!!!

[ajp71]

You won't notice the difference in performance but you will notice a huge increase in sound quality.

[richardatkinson]

I'm planning on picking up a HDA X-Plosion card when i get the money, and i'd reccomend it to anyone looking for an alternative to a X-Fi. It's perfect for me, as it has a THX and DD encoder built in, so that means i can plug it directly into my Z5500's with an optical or coax. The only place where this card falls short is in the EAX department. Like all other non-creative sound cards, it can only use EAX 2. However, there's a push on game developers to OpenAL as an alternative to eax.

[Bob Smith]

I'm using this, no silly surround rubbish: http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Audiophile2496-main.html

I'm not convinced to any differences in sound quality, I recently upgraded to this from on-board sound and even using a £40 interconnect there's only a subtle difference (running through a grands worth of stereo audio gear). That's testing high-bitrate mp3s though, don't care about all these sound technologies they keep making up for games.

[dUmAsS]

I'm using this, no silly surround rubbish: http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Audiophile2496-main.html

I'm not convinced to any differences in sound quality, I recently upgraded to this from on-board sound and even using a £40 interconnect there's only a subtle difference (running through a grands worth of stereo audio gear). That's testing high-bitrate mp3s though, don't care about all these sound technologies they keep making up for games.
you didnt notice a difference because you went from onboard to close enough onboard ;) that m-audio card looks empty compared to a x-fi :)

[shim]

i got a Maudio card (delta 410 from memory) in one of me other computers which i use for recording.. never tryed playin games with it.. :P

btw for a gamer, the X-Fi for the win..

[P5YcHoM4N]

The best sound cards ever are ~£800 a pop, perfect for audio. I so want one (a guy I know at uni has one because his doing an A/V course), sounds amazing, but at £800 a time... I could build a new PC for that XD

[Albieg]

Personally I would never buy a pro or semipro audio soundcard to play. I own an Esi-Pro Waveterminal 192X, which is considered a reference card for the price range, and I'm VERY fine with that, as long as audio quality and music making is involved. Great converters, the difference with Creative Labs cards is huge, but the drivers are suited for audio productions and lack any kind of directx acceleration. For what I do it's okay, but if you're into gaming stick with general purpose cards. It's quite silly to have excellent low latency ASIO drivers and high quality 192 KHz 24 Bit DAC and ADC converters if you don't use them.