Choosing Video/Sound Cards

[nshresth]

Hello,
Recently I bought the following

i)Motherboard--Abit kx7-333
ii)CPU--AMD xp 1600+
iii)Thermaltake Volcano 6cu +
iv)WD 40gigs

Now I am trying to choose a video card and a sound card.
I need a medium video card. I don't need very expensive or very cheap.
ATI Radeon 8500LE W/TV is around $83.

I will be recording some songs using CAKEWALK software so I might need a decent soundcard.
What do you think of Creative Lab Sound Blaster Live5.1?


So guys please give me some suggestions....

By the way if you can suggest me on the following, I would appreciate--

Floppy Drive
CD-RW

Thank you

 

[alkemyst]

floppy drive: Teac or Sony or a Panasonic SuperDisc

CD-RW check out www.cdspeed2000.com and choose from there

 

[Toxic]

How much do you want to spend on a soundcard? For recording music, there are much better cards than anything creative puts out, but obviously, they cost more. Also, there are mixed results with via chipsets (which your board has) and soundblaster cards. You might want to check on that further.

I used to run a Philips acoustic edge soundcard, and it was a pretty good card. Recently went the wayside on me and I replaced it with a Turtle beach card (based on recommendation on this board). I couldn't be happier with that card, but there are other cards that are better - esp if you want to do alot of recording. I use Sonar myself, but haven't recorded anything on the TB card yet, so I can't really comment on that aspect of it.

Floppy - I rarely use mine, so I'd say go for whatever

CDRW - I'd recommend a Lite On model. Cheap, and good performance.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Yup. Floppy is useful but I'd get the cheapest poss as they get very little use now esp with CDRW drives and media being so cheap. CDRW all drives other than Sony and Philips are good, LiteOn are excellently prices and have excellent perf! Don't get hung up on numbers, there's only about 1 min diff when burning a 700MB CD between 24x and 48x and you're talking seconds between 40x and 48x.

I take it you are going to o/c that XP1600+ as many people get them to XP2000+ speeds! At stock the best gfx card is GF3 or Rad8500 although Rad9000PRO aren't too bad but are inferior to Rad8500. GF3 have better AA but the Radeons have much better image quality, TVout, dual display and hw DVD playback. If you o/c at all a GF4TI4200 will really start to pull away and the GF4 enhancements mean you don't have to compromise as they have excellent image quality, dual display, benefit hugely from the fastest CPUs and TVout and AA are enhanced over GF3 cards too. If you go Radeon def get 128MB and double check clocks and features as these often vary between manus and on retial vs oem/bulk too.

For soundcards it is best to avoid Live as they hog the CPU and are very quirky. Audigy should eb fine even on VIA although there are plenty of very capable alternatives. Namely, Fortissimo II, Turtle Breach Santa Cruz and Philips Acoustic Edge which reportedly produces 4point DIRECTIONAL surround sound from a stereo source whether a 3D game support it or not! Did you try that feature out Toxic, and how did you find the PAE?

 

[Toxic]

Yeah, I ran my PAE thru it's paces. It's a great card, no doubt. Mine started producing static after owning it since they first put them on the market (1.5 years, maybe more?). I could never correct the problem, and at the end started asking for advice here last week about possible fixes. After finally just saying the hell with it (and unable to get a response from Philips) I went with the TB Santa Cruz.

I like the TB card alot. In some ways, the Philips is the better card, but I think for overall use, the TB edges it out, though in my opinion it doesn't do some things as well as the PAE. The Philips card is a great sound card, no matter how you cut it. Well worth the money, I just wish mine lasted longer.

Having said all that, the TB card is no slouch. More a jack of all trades card, but master of none. Either way, it's easier to install, and sounds great. TB was actually my first choice when I bought the PAE, but wasn't available in my area (it might not have been widely available anywhere at the time I bought the PAE). A long time ago that was.

I have no problem suggesting people buy the philips card. I'm sure mine going bad was a fluke, bad luck or whatever. When it was working correctly, I didn't think there was a better soundcard on the market (barring professional level soundcards).

 

[nshresth]

Thank you guys,
So can you tell me the specific sound card and video card.
My budget is around $120 combined.


I don't need top of the line brand--
As I mentioned earlier--I will record some songs on computer...

As far as the video card--I will use photoshop.

Thank you.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Well Rad8500LE pref 128MB is a VERY capable card and if you do get into gaming it will still give great perf from your CPU. If gaming isn't as important you could get a Rad9000 but since you should still have $30-40 for your soundcard I'd rec an 8500. Do bear in mind the clocks often suffer in bulk/oem versions as well as by manu (where the dual display may be compromised too).

As for the soundcard, all of the mentioned ones are very good, I'd just avoid the Live personally although it is good value for money, perhaps price is the best deciding factor. Just to recap the cards are Fortissino II, Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, Philips Acoustic Edge and Audigy.

 

[nshresth]

Thank you,
but it will be helpful if you can mention the parts in detail, since there are lot of them.
Also--I have another question---
about memory---
is it true that 2 256mb ddr is faster and cheaper than one 512mbddr ??(pc2700)----what brand would you suggest? I am going either for Samsung or Crucial.

 

[AnAndAustin]

What parts in particular?

Generally 1 RAM stick is always faster and cheaper than 2 smaller sticks. The exception is in Dual Channel mobos, at this moment in time that means nForce1 where you only gain if using the GF2MX onboard gfx and the nForce2 where there is a only a small gain. Crucial and Samsung make very respected good quality RAM. PC2700 doesn't offer much advantage at all over PC2100 but it is wise as it allows you to use the fastest RAM timings, has more o/c'ing headroom and is much better to have for the near future.

 

[bulldawg]

TBSC for the soundcard.

Good video cards to me imply Nvidia. I have purchased two ATI cards and had lots of crashes/lock ups because of their drivers. I tried 98SE/2K and XP. AMD and Intel based systems. Nvidia driver releases just work better for me. I just replaced my All in Wonder with a GeForce 4, no OS re-install, and it's been smooth sailing. In the same machine with the Wonder in, I had all sorts of grief.


Maybe it's just me?

 

[Goi]

$120 for soundcard and video card combined is pretty tough to do, especially if you need a decent soundcard for recording. Already, the Radeon8500LE you mentioned is already $83, which would leave you with less than $40 for the soundcard, and you can't even get a Santa Cruz at that price. I'd suggest you increase your budget, if not you'll have to settle for something significantly less.

 

[l33t]

If you don't mind a used parts, you can easily find a used Audigy for $50. You won't need to worry if it has been OC or fried or abused .

 

[rogue1979]

How about a TB Santa Cruz and the Radeon 9000? You should be able to stay in your budget. The 9000 is now $65 shipped and overclocks easily to 9000 Pro levels. Not as fast as the 8500, but still more than powerful enough and has slightly better 2D and well as DirectX 9 features for the future.

 

[AnAndAustin]

rogue1979 the Rad9000 does NOT have any DX9, it is little more than a cut down, inferior but cheaper to build Rad8500. The Rad8500LE is still 15% faster than Rad9000PRO and o/c'ing info on the Rad9000 cards has been very thin on the ground. Rad9000 is a better idea than the GF4MX because it supports DX8 in hw but both Rad9000 andf GF4MX are pretty far below GF3 or Rad8500 perf levels.

The card to go for is the Rad9000PRO or Rad8500LE and since the Rad8500LE is a fair bit faster and generally cheaper that would be the best one to go for. 128MB is definitely a good idea if you can get it and stay within your budget, otherwise 64MB is still very fine and won't effect you much at all in current games.

 

[nshresth]

Thanx.
I think I will choose Santa Cruz as my sound card..
But I found the following prices --
i)Turtle Beach, Santa Cruz, PCI, Digital, OEM ---$55
ii)Turtle Beach, Santa Cruz, PCI, Digital, Retail--$74.75

I found this at http://www.adamant.com/main.asp
Which one should I pick? I guess OEM is fine....


About video card---I don't play games---
So more suggestions on that--
U guys are great..
Thanks.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Depends what you want from the gfx card. Rad9000 is cheap and very capable, Rad8500LE is much better for games and is very close to the 9000 for image quality, features etc. Rad7500 is also a quality card and it is probably a toss up between this and GF4MX420, in any case see what the prices are like. All these cards have great image quality, dual display (do double check though), TVout and hw DVD playabck witht he Rads being slightly stronger in these depts. All these cards still give you roughly GF2GTS - GF3 level 3D perf so they aren't hopeless if you do want to play the odd game. See what the prices are like.

 

[sechs]

Go for the OEM TBSC; all you need is a card and drivers -- drivers are downloadable!

If you don't game, then an 8500le is more than enough for you. If it's cheaper, you may go for the 9000, but the 8500 is a more mature product (that is, a lot more bugs have been worked out).

 

[rbV5]

If you don't game, a Radeon 7500 is more than you need actually and much cheaper than the 8500, and once you get past the hype, I've used my SB Live 5.1 to record with Sonar XL with excellent results. Its no Terratec DM6fire (my next soundcard) and its not 24-bit/96kHz either, but its cheap and works fine recording my guitar in Cakewalk (and my ears are somewhat discerning, but I also think my z560 speakers sound good cranked up too) it gets the job done...for now.

 

[Goi]

Seeing as how you don't play games and use Photoshop, I'd suggest a normal 64MB ATI Radeon 9000 or Radeon 9000 Pro, not just powered by ATI but built by ATI. The Radeon 9000s have a higher signal quality than the ealier Radeon cards, which are already quite a bit better than the nvidia cards(especially pre-GF4). The extra image quality will come in handy especially if you're working at high resolutions. Since you're not gaming, the extra speed of the other cards aren't needed, even if you are doing a bit of gaming, the Radeon 9000 will be more than sufficient. A 64MB version is already overkill for graphical work, but that's the minimum you can get, so get that.

Alternatively, you can even just get an old G400/G450 if you can find one for cheap. Those are excellent for 2D work, but have very bad 3D acceleration, which isn't a problem for you I guess.

Soundcard wise, the TBSC will do fine for you, you could always upgrade to a better card in the future if you start getting more professional. The OEM one will probably do too, but make sure the vendor you're buying from is reputable. I'm not sure how good adamant is, but I got mine from directron IIRC.

 

[rogue1979]

Sorry, the Radeon 9000 does not have DirectX 9 support. For a difference of only $8, there is no way a 7500 should be considered over the 9000. The 9000 is still much faster than the 7500 and does have full DirectX 8 support. And yes, the 9000 does have slighly improved 2D quality over the 8500 series. And yes, we now have overclocking info on the 9000. I have three Radeon 9000's all running between 290-300/245-250. Yes the 8500 is faster, I had the Radeon 8500LE @300/315. While a huge difference was found in 3DMark2001, actual gaming framerates did not show nearly as big of a disadvantage for the 9000. As far as powered by ATI quality is concerned, the Atlantis by Saphire is top notch quality regardless of the price.

Most importantly of all, $55 for the Turtle Beach and $65 for the Radeon 9000 is still on budget at $120!

I have recently owned and tested:
Radeon 7500 64MB DDR
2 Geforce2 Ti
3 Radeon 9000 64MB,
Radeon 8500LE
Geforce3 Ti 200

As far as the worthless 3DMark goes, my results jived with most of the recent reviews out there. As far as image quality or gaming framerates are concerned, I will no longer believe any bullshit reviews I read out there. All of the video cards were highly overclocked and my results didn't come close to crap that is printed out there. But that's another story..... I'm telling you guys, Nvidia, ATI or any other video card manufacturer doesn't pay my bills. I tweak the cards and then find out the results, no favorites here!

 

[nshresth]

hello Guys--
What does Voyetra means?
I saw Voyetra Turtle Beach Santa Cruz--is it the same as just TBSC?

Thank you

 

[AnAndAustin]

Actually the Rad9000 'only' has perf on par with the Rad7500, so DX8, better MPEG playback and slightly enhanced image quality are the only reasons, still for an extra $8 it still makes a LOT of sense to plump for the 9000. If you do want to game the 9000 should o/c pretty well too, unlike the 7500. Did you have any probs o/c'ing those 9000's rogue1979, and what sw did you use?

So it seems Rad9000 and TBSC are very fine choices. If you can find a bargain deal on Rad7500, GF4MX420 or an old Matrox G200-450 then they are cool too. Rad8500LE is MUCH better for gaming, but that's not really an issue for you so don't pay the extra. Of course SB Live (little CPU hungry and quirky but well priced), Audigy, Fortissimo II (isn't there a III now too?) and Philips Acoustic Edge are all worth checking out in case you find them cheaper than TBSC.

 

[MusicSoundsBetterWithYou]

www.homerecording.com http://www.homerecording.com/digital_results.html

i can undercut your budget....for pure recording go with a yamaha on the low low end...and the 9000 should be plenty unless ur gaming above 1024x768

the yamhas avilable for...$12 from axion quicksell...i have a feeling the TBSC is mostly for listening to music....i have it and the input capablities seem limited, but quality should be fine....for minor recording and video tho

Yamaha $12+Radeon 7000(VE) $35=$47

or on the higer end...$85 for a sound card hmmm....TBSC in about 60 and i dont like soundblasters, havent since the AWE64 gold, the filters on the TBSC are sooo clean....so then $95 and get some more ram or a faster HDD if ur recording

 

[rogue1979]

I used RageTweaker 3.6, loading only the overclocking utility and not the other stuff. I put a 40mm fan on each of the passive gpu heatsinks. Don't believe those crap reviews, the 9000 is a good deal faster than the 7500 in gaming framerates. The high overclocking speeds of the 7500 make it look good in 3DMark2001, and it is decent in games. It gets close to the 9000 in 3DMark, but in gaming framerates it falls behind, especially in higher resolutions and when using FSAA.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Cool, although I am surprised you bother with AA on the Radeons (non-9700 of course) as the hit they take make simply running a higher res much more preferable. Aniso is very fast, so 8-16tap should be very cool on all Radeons, I'd forget AA and either go AF or up the res.