External Soundcard..

[lopri]

My rig is housed on an A8N32-SLI, and as we all know, this thing has such a great layout that you can't put too many things in your machine. I currently have a 7900GTX, and a Audigy 2 EX, and one slot space for a USB bracket. (This thing comes with only 4 USB ports) And that's just about it as far as expansion can go with this motherboard.

I've been lately offered another 7900GTX for a very good price, so have been seriously thinking about SLI. However, I will in no way put the Audigy in between the 2 fat-assed video cards. Look at this pic:

http://img199.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fuckinga8n329uj.jpg

I've got this pic somewhere on the web and thought it's not practical at all.

SOOOOOOOOO...(sorry about long rant) In short, I'm looking into an external sound card, so that I can avoid the ugly set-up. I'm assuming the interface will be USB or Firewire (more likely USB, I guess), and found a couple. But I have no experience with them and the quality of external sound cards in general is totally unknown to me. Do they work just as well as internal ones, if your primary use is listening to music / gaming? I don't do any professional audio work and I'm not an audiophile, if that helps.

Any information / recommendation would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[lopri]

A short search brought the followings:

Philips Aurilium 5.1 Channel Audio Processor - USB

Creative Labs USB Sound Blaster MP3+ External Sound Card Sound System

Creative Labs USB SoundBlaster Live! 24-Bit External Sound Card

They seemed to be cheaper than internal sound card, so it's also a confusing factor to me. (Isn't external "something" usually more expensive? External hard-drive, external modem, external ... etc.)

 

[CSMR]

What are your requirements?

 

[PurdueRy]

http://www.creative.com/products/produc...ategory=1&subcategory=205&product=9103

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: CSMR
What are your requirements?

Ummm.... First, I'd like to avoid the on-board sound of A8N32 especially considering this --> http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2580&p=14

As you can see, the on-board sound of A8N32 is horrible, and eats up precious CPU cycle up to 17%!! So my requirements.. would be

1) to free the CPU up from sound-related duty as much as possible,
2) As long as it does 5.1 (well even 2.1 would be fine if it's decent and affordable), I'll be happy. EAX/OpenAL would be quite nice but not a requirement. Just a plus.

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
http://www.creative.com/products/produc...ategory=1&subcategory=205&product=9103

I saw that. Thank you. What are the general opinions on advantage/disadvantages of external sound solution?

 

[A5]

Originally posted by: lopri

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
http://www.creative.com/products/produc...ategory=1&subcategory=205&product=9103

I saw that. Thank you. What are the general opinions on advantage/disadvantages of external sound solution?

In general, they aren't as good as internal solutions, and anything on USB will probably eat more CPU cycles than something on the PCI bus...I would just leave the internal Audigy in there, and see if it effects the cooling perfomance of the GTX at all.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: A5
In general, they aren't as good as internal solutions, and anything on USB will probably eat more CPU cycles than something on the PCI bus...I would just leave the internal Audigy in there, and see if it effects the cooling perfomance of the GTX at all.

Good advice! It also depends on what your requirements are. My laptop does not have a LINE OUT port (needed for A to D recording), so I added the Audigy 2NX (USB External) and it solved all my problems and really sounds great. Makes my laptop sound better than my desktop.

2NX

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: A5
In general, they aren't as good as internal solutions, and anything on USB will probably eat more CPU cycles than something on the PCI bus...I would just leave the internal Audigy in there, and see if it effects the cooling perfomance of the GTX at all.

Is that true?! OMG if so how stupid I am.. But I'm really not fond of squeezing a sound card between the fat video cards.. Do you think I'm better of with on-board sound than external USB solution?

Thanks everyone for input. It's been a big help so far.

 

[lopri]

Anyone with any experience with external sound cards? Please share your experiences. Thank you very much!

 

[Cerb]

Aurilium: if you're content with creative, why bother? Worse sound in games that use surround, and Linux support id dodgy. The volume knob is digital. I'm using an Aurilium in my PC for a DAC.

Overall, the Audigy 2 NX will be much better. The only real con is extra CPU use. I doubt you'll notice the difference.

 

[lopri]

Anyone else? Please share your experience/viewpoints. A link to benches or reviews, etc would be great also. I'd like to know the pros and cons of external sound cards. Thanks a bunch!

 

[A5]

Originally posted by: lopri

Originally posted by: A5
In general, they aren't as good as internal solutions, and anything on USB will probably eat more CPU cycles than something on the PCI bus...I would just leave the internal Audigy in there, and see if it effects the cooling perfomance of the GTX at all.

Is that true?! OMG if so how stupid I am.. But I'm really not fond of squeezing a sound card between the fat video cards.. Do you think I'm better of with on-board sound than external USB solution?

Thanks everyone for input. It's been a big help so far.

It's the nature of the beast with USB. It uses the CPU to process it's instructions and whatnot instead of a dedicated chip (and therefore it's very cheap to implement compared to something like firewire, which has a dedicated controller). While I'm sure most of them sound good, they won't sound any better than what you have now. I really don't understand your opposition to just leaving the Audigy between the GTXs. It won't really effect the cooling performance of the upper GTX.

 

[Cerb]

Extra CPU use: http://www.tomshardware.com/2003/11/14/usb_2/page15.html
The Terratec is likely similar to any other non-Creative solution.

 

[imported_red5]

If you are plugging your sound into a real high end system (something significantly better than PC speakers), I must recommend a M-Audio something or other. You can get M-Audio audiophiles on firewire or USB. I had a PCI version (not the 192khz one even) and its sound quality is top notch especially for a $100 sound card. The external ones cost a bit more, but if sound quality is what you are after it's well worth it. (You can also record on them too!)

 

[mattburk]

would this m audio do the trick?
http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=3805003

 

[aidanjm]

need to decide if you are wanting best option for music, or best option for gaming, before choosing a model.