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Audigy or Santa Cruz? What should I buy?

A

apemanttt

Member
I need help deciding between the two sound cards. Both of them run about the same price. I plan on using my computer for gaming, watching DVDs, and listening to MP3s. I would like to hook my computer up to my stereo, can both cards do this flawlessly? What about if I get a speaker setup? How do they both work?

Feedback is great. Thanks.
 
What kind of audigy are you looking at... I have the audigy platinum and love it (have no problems on my athlon rig whatsoever)

Plus having all the controls and remote kick booty 🙂
 
I'm just looking at the normal Audigy OEM for around $60.

Can you explain some of the differences between this and the Santa Cruz?

Thanks.
 
audigy: mostly gaming
santa cruz: gaming and music
both should be able to get hooked up to your stereo and should work very well with a speaker set up
 
Since it seems that you want an card that can handle gaming and a home theater I would recommend the Audigy Platinum.
It's the card I use for gaming, mp3's, and movies. It's perks are a good bass, remote control, sb1394 firewire port, infrared sensors, and other front panel ports that easily let you hook up a stereo, tape deck, keyboard. What ever you want really, heh.

Another card you might want to check out is the Hercules Gaming Theater XP 6.1.
I would say that it's the best for gaming and home theater. I'm not sure about how well mp3's sound though, but it's probably good as well. It's perks are a front panel 2 port USB, and a gameport.

The Santa Cruz card is good but doesn't have all the bells and whistles that the other 2 cards have. On the bright side it has clear sound.
 
The main factor though is I'm trying to keep my costs down. I'm hoping to stay below 70$ for my sound card so I was thinking either the Santa Cruz or the normal Audigy sound card.
 
get the audigy, as you can see all the games coming up has EAX HD or EAX 3 support, which only the audigy has support for it, and i must say, the sound quality is better than my previous and my friends Game theater XP which uses the same chip as the santa cruz do.
 
Santa Cruz does 5.1 expansion from varoius sound sources much better than the Audigy. Both are nice for gaming; HOWEVER, the Audigy is the ONLY card that'll take advantage of EAX 3.0 (EAX Advanced HD). Both are nice for movies ... both are nice of music.

 
i like the santa cruz cuz mp3's and such sound better with it than with an audigy (or a hercules gtxp in that case). (the audigy isn't really 24/96 like it says). i also find the versajack very convenient.
however, i also don't find the eax 3.0 to be all that important. the santa cruz has very good positional sound (via the sensaura chip) and can do some of the reverb and other stuff (eax 2.0), but if you want the latest and greatest in 3d sound, your best bet is with the audigy.

if you're stuck with either regular audigy (no breakout box or remote or anything) or santa cruz, santa cruz would prolly be better for you unless you REALLY want the eax 3.0

if you can get the audigy platinum (with all the bells and whistles), you might be better off with an audigy cuz you an use the breakout box to hook up to a stereo and other stuff while having a speaker set up.
 
Okay I've asked around and the consensus seems to be to go for the Audigy OEM for abut $60. Does anyone have any last words or arguments before I go ahead and purchase this from Newegg?
 
I have both the Audigy (Gamer version) and Santa Cruz. Although the SC is currently my favorite of the two and the music/.mp3 playback is noticably superior, I would have to say that the Audigy is just flat out awesome when it comes to gaming (even without EAX Advanced HD). If gaming is your primary bag, I can't think of a better card at the moment.

Just FYI, my current specs.
 
If you get a VIA chipset mobo, do NOT get Creative. A large probability says that you will have hardware problems. If you go VIA, go with the Santa Cruz.
 
santa cruz.. creative is the devil.. i had a sblive and my system was getting random instabilities. ever since i got the santa cruz my system has been running rock solid stable (months) so even if the audigy is better i wouldnt recomend it cuz of the name Creative.
 
Santa Cruz!! This is the best sound card I've owned. It sounds great, has stable drivers (for linux and windows (Its supported in the linux kernel) ), and just does what its supposed to do. I don't want bells and whistles! I want clean sound, and the Sanat Cruz provides that. After my experiences with Creative tech support *shiver* never again am I buying creative. Never.
 
I have a GTXP however I am not satisfied with it's headphone output. It doesn't get loud enough with my high impedance Sennheisers. I could try modifying the breakout box to increase the gain though...but i could never get the top of the box off 😛 How does the headphone output of the Audigy compare?
 
I have a Cruz, and I haven't had a single problem with it since I got it(dont remember when, when they were fairly new).

Superb driver support, works fine in Windows 2000 as well Debian/unstable running kernel 2.4.18(worked with previous 2.4's I tried as well for that matter).
 
hey does anyone know if the Hercules GTXP will run in Linux? considering it has the same chip as the Santa Cruz, I wouldn't be surprised if it had support built in, though you never know...
 
If you get a VIA chipset mobo, do NOT get Creative. A large probability says that you will have hardware problems. If you go VIA, go with the Santa Cruz.
Click to expand...

Nothing wrong with my Audigy and VIA board on stability,the sound is awesome for gaming,if anyone puts gaming as top requirement then go for a Audigy 🙂.


Also got a old SB Live in my old VIA board so I`m two for two on stability 😉.
 
Another vote for the Santa Cruz. If you use headphones, this card is amazing, and for music playback it can't be beat. It's definately no slouch in games either. I decided to pick up a Santa Cruz over an Audigy since the SC has way better driver support than what Creative Labs offers. The SC is a good, solid, worry free card that sounds great. Sure, there's no FireWire, but there *is* the VersaJack, which helps out if you use more than one output for your sound and don't wanna crawl behind your computer every time you wanna change the output.

If anyone disagrees with me on the driver support issue, try finding me some Win98 SBLive! 5.1 drivers on Creative's web site. SBLive's still do sell as budget cards and many people use Windows 98 still (not on this forum, perhaps, but the general public does), but finding drivers for em is an exercise in futility. Not so, with the SC. Drivers are updated regularly and are available for all OS's.
 
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