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Audigy to X-Fi. New surround too. Will I notice a difference?

C

Coldkilla

Diamond Member
My current sound card (I think) has taken a dump (SoundBlaster Audigy). I cannot plug the Black or Pink Cord into the soundcard without the sound completely turning off. However, If I just have the green cord plugged in, it works fine.

I just bought an X-Fi Sound card. Now with the new soon to be X-Fi card with working connectors, will I notice a preformace difference? The surround sound works perfectly fine. I just bought a Logitech 5.1 z5500 set from my old z5300 set.

The new surround sound made my world of sound 1000x better. However, will it get even better with this new card? Will I be able to notice?
 
In terms of FPS/CPU utilization I doubt it. Pretty sure the reviews showed very little difference in performance between the Audigy1/2 and the X-Fi line. In terms of sound quality and effects I noticed a very nice difference though. 🙂 Less signal noise too.
 
I don't know...will you?

In all seriousness, no one can tell you whether YOU will tell a difference or not. Typically people will tell themselves there was a huge difference even if there wasn't to justify the price.

So I guess either way, people typically notice a difference 😛
 
Yes... but the fact that there is a difference remains the same.

Using that manner of speaker Purdue... you could just as easily say "The fact that wether or not you will notice a difference between the gefore 6600 and the 8800" is really up to you. 🙂


And this isn't comparing two perfectly good components. This is a broken Audigy with only 1 working plug-in (Green cord only). Compaired to the soon to be new and fully working X-Fi with 3 ports for the cords that work
 
Well I think you'd agree with your videocard analogy that there are some cases where someone might not really notice a difference.

What if they're just doing 2d work?
What if their monitor is limited to 1024x768 and they play games without a lot of detail and textures?
What if they can't see very well?

Along the same lines with the soundcard...
What if they're listening to poorly made 128kbps mp3s
What if the speakers are limited in quality and nuances aren't going to be very obvious? (yeah, z-5500s are pretty decent in computer speaker terms, but entry level in the scheme of sound output devices)
What if you don't hear very well or don't pay attention to details in sound that much?




There are a lot of factors that go into how much of a difference this will make. Of course when you're comparing it to a card that doesn't actually work correctly, I'd bet you'll notice quite a difference when you actually get surround sound from games and movies and such 😉
 
Hmmm... yummy Logitech 5.1 z5500's. Enjoy! Those speakers are great. I find that I have to keep the sub turned down between 1.5 and 3.5 for music. For movies/gaming you can crank it up a little higher but other than that it's just too freaking overpowering.

I have an old Audigy as well and have been wondering if I'd notice a difference in sound quality with a newer card. I guess let us know!
 
I think you will notice a difference in your gaming, especially with those nice speakers.
 
Considering the viddy card analogy it's not so much a case of faster, but one of capabilities and without lowering performance. For example, one can do Transparency AA and one cannot. Well the X-Fi can do EAX5 and advanced CMSS-3D filtering whereas the Audigy cannot. So while the fidelity is better the "quality" really comes from the output content (within the limitations of the source material).
 
I noticed a small difference using my Logitech 5:1 speakers listening to music, however gaming with speakers resulted in better surround effects with more accurate positioning... headphones made a very large & noticable difference in games though.

 
Originally posted by: Auric
Considering the viddy card analogy it's not so much a case of faster, but one of capabilities and without lowering performance. For example, one can do Transparency AA and one cannot. Well the X-Fi can do EAX5 and advanced CMSS-3D filtering whereas the Audigy cannot. So while the fidelity is better the "quality" really comes from the output content (within the limitations of the source material).
Click to expand...

Yes, IMO comparing it to video isn't exactly a 1:1 comparison. Unlike video, sound is highly subjective. What's better to one person is worse to another. So in that regards, we cannot predict how much of a change you can notice or if you will find the sound change positive.

Also, if you do want to compare it to a video card. It is more like what Auric and Jello are saying. If all you listen to is 128kbps MP3's or play videos games with explosion after explosion only, then your sound quality will be limited more by the format/purpose than the card. It would be like buying a video card upgrade for a game that it turns out was solely CPU limited on your system. There might not be that discernible of an upgrade.

But, like I said, people often tell themselves there was a major change even if there wasn't. So I would be surprised if you said the difference wasn't apparent.
 
If you have remotely good speakers (i.e. not cheap computer speakers), you should just keep your Audigy. I have an X-fi and can tell you that the effects like CMSS-3D, crystalizer et al are junk. If it's not the buggy drivers causing popping, it's the piss poor distortion they cause to sound due to the "crystalizing" or "3d-ifying" effect. I used both of the aforementioned for a while and turned them off the second I started noticing what they were ACTUALLY doing to the sound. Now that I'm on bookshelves, I just use the mode switching (kind of annoying to tell you the truth), other than that, all the other effects/features I could have passed on. Having said that, I would recommend an upgrade to an X-fi only if you are using oboard currently.

In terms of game performance, the difference will be negligible going from 1 card to another. The only 'real' thing you will miss is EAX 5.0 and whichever versions are missing on the Audigy, but I doubt they make that big a difference. You can only go that far making pops and booms in games, which an Audigy should do fine. Congratulations on the fine speakers though, upgrading those further would be more worth it than a card.
 
Bottom line here is that if you have an Audigy 2 or better & its working fine I wouldn't bother replacing it with an X-Fi, but if you need a new soundcard the X-Fi is the way to go despite shaky XP drivers.

Really the biggest issue with all Creative soundcards right now is the crappy Vista support the currently provide & if I were running Vista as my primary gaming OS I think I'd stick with onboard sound for the time being.
 
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