Audio Card for new system

[mwdavis77]

I'm building a new gaming rig and I'm considering a discrete audio card. I've been looking at the Asus Xonar or the SB X-FI Titanium but I see some concerning reviews for both of these on NewEgg. Anyone have comments or suggestions?

Thanks

 

[thelastjuju]

What is your budget?

As far as I'm concerned, unless you are willing to spend $100-150+ on a sound card, you really might as well stick it out with onboard.. and of course you are going to need some quality speakers and possibly amplification to really take advantage of what a quality sound card can do.

The HT Omega Claros are the best sound cards on the market right now. They sound phenomenally better than Creative's X-Fi chipset (which are heavly reliant on ARTIFICIAL effects), The Asus cards would be about in the middle. Anything will be better than Creative's new lines of cards really.

 

[mwdavis77]

Please forgive my ignorance on this topic, I haven't' been in the market for a sound card in 10 years. How is the support for these HT cards?

The Asus card I was looking at is only $80 and I've heard it is very nice. I was a little concerned about the driver and customer support though.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Is there some feature in the dedicated card that makes you want one? If not, I'd start with onboard audio, it's fine for most people these days.

 

[mwdavis77]

I'm just looking for something higher quality than onboard.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I'm just looking for something higher quality than onboard.

Higher quality in what way?

The 5.1 audio on my $35 Foxconn socket 775 motherboard has no noticeable hiss or distortion, and plays every game I throw at it without any problems.

Onboard audio hardware and drivers are much better now than 5-10 years ago, just like a $30 DVD player now plays CDs better than the $1,000 CD players of 10-15 years ago.

 

[biostud]

What speakers/headphones do you use?
Is it primarily for gaming, music or movies?

 

[mfenn]

What speakers/headphones do you use?
Is it primarily for gaming, music or movies?

:thumbsup: x1000.

There's no point in getting a good DAC/AMP (that's all a sound card really is these days) and using it to drive crappy speakers. A good rule of thumb is that your speakers/headphones should cost about twice as much as your DAC/AMP.

 

[General Kenobi]

:thumbsup: x1000.

There's not point in getting a good DAC/AMP (that's all a sound card really is these days) and using it to drive crappy speakers. A good rule of thumb is that your speakers/headphones should cost about twice as much as your DAC/AMP.

I definitely agree here. An expensive sound card won't make budget range headphones/speakers sound any better.

And despite what people may say, Creative's Xtreme Gamer still offers very good value for gaming.

 

[cantholdanymore]

Don't know about gaming but regarding audio see my post here:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2226311

 

[billyb0b]

Auzentech forte

 

[BrightCandle]

Full disclosure - I have exceptional hearing, I can still hear dog whistles despite my rather mid aged status. I hear the background noise of the world, hear hard drives grinding when they are days from failure and all sorts of other noises no one else ever experiences, its a real curse. About 80% of monitors hurt my ears with their screeching. Thus anything I say is based on having better than 99.9% of the populations hearing making me a poor reviewer on these things for what you'll hear but also means if there is a difference I notice. The MRI of my ears was very interesting

There is a difference between the creative surround sound implementation (Xfi Gamer) and the dolby headphone effect provided by the D2X Xonar. After having played with both extensively over the last few months I find my ears are fooled better by the Xonar than the Creatives. I get better position information especially in the front 180 degrees but I find the rear is still muddy. It is also a much easier to change between a headphone mode and speaker mode on the Xonar than the creative, its just a better interface.

However my current headset for Arma 2 is a PC 360, and that is definitely no where near as good as the 580's and doesn't respond so well on my cmoy as the 580's do. But the 580s don't have a mic so aren't much use in A2.

I tried the realtek chip on my motherboard before I got the Xonar as I have been hearing for a while that the onboard is good enough and my Asus Pro has the best realtek chip going. All there is to say is its not the same. The positional capability is poor in comparison and I got some noticeable noise in the signal once it was boosted by my custom headphone amp. I didn't find it acceptable.

 

[mnewsham]

:thumbsup: x1000.

There's not point in getting a good DAC/AMP (that's all a sound card really is these days) and using it to drive crappy speakers. A good rule of thumb is that your speakers/headphones should cost about twice as much as your DAC/AMP.

True, very true. My current setup was about $450
$325 for the headphones and about $125 for the AMP/DAC

This is not including my $140 speakers.

If you are running $25-50 speakers/headphones onboard sound is perfectly fine, hell when I am out and about on my laptop I use my $325 without my AMP/DAC and while it is noticeably less full sounding and not as clear on highs I can still listen to music without getting too bothered.

 

[Crow550]

Yeah I game with Headphones that can produce some nice bass but integrated sound cards don't have real bass or treble settings. I ended up popping my X-Fi Xtreme Music back in my new build.

If you get a Creative or Creative based card. Get Daniel_ks drivers: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=327083 He delivers the most up to date drivers and features. (Try to download from hotfile as he makes Money from the site to help work on future updates which he hangs in the Creative forums.) Create a restore point first if you are worried about anything.

You can also use the Crystalizer feature on Audigy and such cards too: http://nomoregoatsoup.wordpress.com/2008/05/18/x-fi-crystalizer-for-sb-audigy-series/

and http://www.overclock.net/t/428874/creative-live-and-audigy-24bit-into-x-fi-xtreme-audio-driver-modd

I tried SRS Audio Essentials and Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi MB2 software. As I was unhappy with Realteks offerings for Headphone surround. The SRS program worked well but was a bit cumbersome with it's settings. The Creative software was much better but just lacked the real oomph of real bass settings.

For the best Headphone surround if you do use the SB X-FI MB2 software or a Creative based card. Make sure to set the Windows speakers to 7.1 with Full Range checked and set to Headphones in the program more info (http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=239405). This helps for games that need to look at Windows speaker settings for there speaker mode.

 

[Crow550]

This should be sufficient enough: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829102006

Not a bad price either. Kinda funny I got my XtremeMusic 5-6 years ago on clearance for $50. This is the same card only lacks the breakout box jack.

Check Amazon too. Might find a good deal on used card. If you care that is: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_sc...-fi&sort=price

 

[poohbear]

Creative are notorious for their terrible drivers, for that reason alone i'd avoid them. Nothing but trouble with all their software and i swore them off!

 

[Crow550]

Creative are notorious for their terrible drivers, for that reason alone i'd avoid them. Nothing but trouble with all their software and i swore them off!

Which is why I recommended the pack by Daniel_K.

I been using my X-Fi card since I got it. Still works and never had any major issues. Only in the early versions.

Been rock solid IMO.

 

[BrightCandle]

I have had bad drivers on pretty much everything I have ever owned. 7970 drivers have been shocking, but they'll sort it out soon enough and the current beta looks a lot better. The X fi had terrible drivers in the beginning on Vista and Windows 7 but they seem fine now. The Xonar had problematic drivers for a while but the issues seem to mostly have worked out now.

Modern drivers are really complicated and if its not fly by night companies they will fix them in the end most of the time.

Saying all this Creative just released a new X Fi which sounds like it could be a lot more powerful, that is worth looking into as given more processing power we should expect the surround simulation to improve.

 

[Maximilian]

Sound cards are worthless for pc gaming, vista killed EAX and its vista/windows 7 friendly replacement openAL isnt used in most games because games tend to use their own software based audio solution now.

Sound cards will enhance music though. Asus xonars are great for that, the only good card in creatives entire lineup for this is the titanium HD, the older titaniums are beaten by the xonars IMO and these new "core 3d" cards creative are putting out as the x-fis replacement are absolute bollocks, they are far worse than even the old x-fi titanium chips.

So either save your cash or get a xonar DX/essence STX/titanium HD and pair them up with some good speakers/headphones. I cant comment on the HT omega series as i have never used them but its worth noting most of their range seems to be PCI which is slowly disappearing from motherboards.

 

[poohbear]

Which is why I recommended the pack by Daniel_K.

I been using my X-Fi card since I got it. Still works and never had any major issues. Only in the early versions.

Been rock solid IMO.

Yes thanks for that, i was having nothing but trouble w/ creative's drivers & downloaded from the link u gave, the card is working fine now, hopefully it'll stay that way! My probs were posted in the "computer help" forum. Would love to give daniel k a donation for his efforts, can't believe Creative actually threatened to sue him!

Sent from my Atrix using Tapatalk

 

[Crow550]

Sound cards are worthless for pc gaming, vista killed EAX and its vista/windows 7 friendly replacement openAL isnt used in most games because games tend to use their own software based audio solution now.

Sound cards will enhance music though. Asus xonars are great for that, the only good card in creatives entire lineup for this is the titanium HD, the older titaniums are beaten by the xonars IMO and these new "core 3d" cards creative are putting out as the x-fis replacement are absolute bollocks, they are far worse than even the old x-fi titanium chips.

So either save your cash or get a xonar DX/essence STX/titanium HD and pair them up with some good speakers/headphones. I cant comment on the HT omega series as i have never used them but its worth noting most of their range seems to be PCI which is slowly disappearing from motherboards.

Eh. Not for me. At least with my sound card I can crank up the bass. On board audio just doesn't let you. At least the on board cards I have seen.

There is still quite a few games that support openAL and Alchemy: http://connect.creativelabs.com/alchemy/Lists/Games/AllItems.aspx some supported Titles aren't listed but you can get a general idea.

I found out how to enable hardware sound with Source engine games. It sounds much better than the built in sound engine. If anyone wants to know I can explain how to do it.

I tried on board audio. I just wasn't thrilled but hey that's just me.

 

[Crow550]

Yes thanks for that, i was having nothing but trouble w/ creative's drivers & downloaded from the link u gave, the card is working fine now, hopefully it'll stay that way! My probs were posted in the "computer help" forum. Would love to give daniel k a donation for his efforts, can't believe Creative actually threatened to sue him!

Sent from my Atrix using Tapatalk

Pop a reply here and see if he responds: http://forums.creative.com/showthread.php?t=587995

 

[bononos]

Yes thanks for that, i was having nothing but trouble w/ creative's drivers & downloaded from the link u gave, the card is working fine now, hopefully it'll stay that way! My probs were posted in the "computer help" forum. Would love to give daniel k a donation for his efforts, can't believe Creative actually threatened to sue him!

Sent from my Atrix using Tapatalk

iirc Daniel's mods allowed older CL cards to have some new features available only to x-fi's, and I think fixing some bugs and nonsense that CL didn't feel the need to address. Obviously CL wasn't thrilled about that.

 

[Remobz]

Eh. Not for me. At least with my sound card I can crank up the bass. On board audio just doesn't let you. At least the on board cards I have seen.

There is still quite a few games that support openAL and Alchemy: http://connect.creativelabs.com/alchemy/Lists/Games/AllItems.aspx some supported Titles aren't listed but you can get a general idea.

I found out how to enable hardware sound with Source engine games. It sounds much better than the built in sound engine. If anyone wants to know I can explain how to do it.

I tried on board audio. I just wasn't thrilled but hey that's just me.

Thanks for the info.

 

[mnewsham]

Eh. Not for me. At least with my sound card I can crank up the bass. On board audio just doesn't let you. At least the on board cards I have seen.

There is still quite a few games that support openAL and Alchemy: http://connect.creativelabs.com/alchemy/Lists/Games/AllItems.aspx some supported Titles aren't listed but you can get a general idea.

I found out how to enable hardware sound with Source engine games. It sounds much better than the built in sound engine. If anyone wants to know I can explain how to do it.

I tried on board audio. I just wasn't thrilled but hey that's just me.

If all you want is deep bass you aren't really looking for high quality sound anyway :biggrin:

Accurate reproduction of highs, mids, AND lows will require not only high end cans ($300+) but also an AMP/DAC, such as this one. If all you are worried about is adjusting bass to get a nice healthy BOOM then pick up any old sound card (even some internal cards will allow bass manipulation)