• Sound cards - need advice
    8 replies, posted
I don't know shit about sound cards really so I turn to you for advice FP. I'm thinking of getting a nice sound card to enhance my audio, but not sure what brand to get/what to spend on it. I want something good enough to really notice an improvement. -my motherboard is a P8P67 Deluxe [editline]3rd December 2011[/editline] Forgot to mention, I'm using a 2.1 channel home theater system as my speakers
ASUS's Xonar series and Creative's X-Fi series are both good cards. For music and movies, the Xonar is probably a better choice. The X-Fi has some decent gaming features though.
Your motherboard is new enough that you probably won't hear a difference without spending crazy money, and only if your speakers are relatively high end
Many of the xonar and creative drivers are riddled with problems, read the reviews on newegg for details. Creative's new titanium model is supposed to bring some kind of improvement, but the software is pretty sloppy. Someone suggested this hardware to me in the past: [url]http://store.auzentech.com/auzen-x-meridian-71-2g-p119.aspx[/url] But I couldn't tell you if it was any good, their company is pretty crap with returns (south korea/newegg stopped supporting them) And here are some drivers that people on newegg suggested for the xonar if you ever purchased it: [url]http://brainbit.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/asus-xonar-unified-drivers/[/url] Unlike CPUs and GPUs, sound hardware doesn't really get any better these days. The creative fatal1ty crap has been around since before battlefield 2 was being released.
Get the asus essence one if you can afford it.
It looks like the essence cards don't have optical outs, which is what I need if I'm to use my current cable and not buy a new analog. [url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829271005[/url] This HT | Omega card is what I'm thinking about, do you guys think the sound quality would be worth it? [editline]7th December 2011[/editline] more likely to get [url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132010&Tpk=xonar%20essence%20stx[/url]
Your integrated sound does the same maths as the most expensive sound card on the market. The integrated on that mobo is actually rather good. Unless you have extremely hard to drive headphones or shitty amps for your current speakers it's not worth it. [editline]7th December 2011[/editline] Even then you could just get a better amp. You buy a soundcard for the features not the performance.
[QUOTE=BrainDeath;33616752]Your integrated sound does the same maths as the most expensive sound card on the market. The integrated on that mobo is actually rather good. Unless you have extremely hard to drive headphones or shitty amps for your current speakers it's not worth it. [editline]7th December 2011[/editline] Even then you could just get a better amp. You buy a soundcard for the features not the performance.[/QUOTE] Thats probably true, listening to music or anything with my mobos integrated sounds [b]insanely good[/b] I was just curious if a soundcard could somehow make it a lot better (unimaginable tbh) I think I'll stick to my integrated, thanks everyone
I built a new PC in October and I bought a soundcard with it. It was a Xonar DS or something. It was a pain in the ass to get functional drivers on Windows 7 and the sound quality was rubbish when I compared it to the mobo. Sound cards CAN make a difference but it depends how much you're willing to pay and what device you're using with them. A great soundcard is useless with some weak speakers/headphones. Overall, your mobo audio should be fine.
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