M-Audio "Revolution" RTL

[Ardan]

I have seen it on newegg, does anyone know if it is any good? I know of M-Audio and have dealt with their products before, and they were always good. Somewhere down along the line, i'm sure i'll finally rid myself of the horrible peice of hardware that is the 'Audigy' and get a new sound card, but not now. Of course, I do a lot of gaming also, so maybe I can find a good place with a Hercules sound card. How about their highest product, is it the Gamesurround Fortissimo III 7.1? Does anyone know how good that one is. If I can't make a decision by the time I decide to buy a sound card (not anytime soon), i'll just go for the Santa Cruz. We have that in another PC and it is very nice.

 

[Brian48]

If you're a gamer, then the M-Audio is not the sound best card for you. The best "non-Creative" gaming card is the Fortissimo III, or the Herc GTXP if you want the breakout box.

Personally, I'd recommend you give the Audigy2 a try a before completely swearing off Creative. I did (when my Acoustic Edge died) and I'm glad I took the chance.

 

[Ardan]

I was contemplating the Audigy 2 (as a future purchase) but, while i've had good experiences with Creative's hardware historically, I have had better experiences without it .

 

[human2k]

Originally posted by: Brian48
If you're a gamer, then the M-Audio is not the sound best card for you. The best "non-Creative" gaming card is the Fortissimo III, or the Herc GTXP if you want the breakout box.

Personally, I'd recommend you give the Audigy2 a try a before completely swearing off Creative. I did (when my Acoustic Edge died) and I'm glad I took the chance.

Does the Fortissimo III use the same chip as the GTXP?

 

[Brian48]

It does now. It USED TO use the higher-end CS4630 chipset (same as Santa Cruz), but now it's "downgraded" to the same CS4624 as the Fortissimo series. You're not losing much though. Better driver development has brought the CS4624 a long way. Herc opted to standardize the chipset in order to unify the drivers and because the CS4624 appears to be more flexible to work with (not mention to keep costs down as well). I really like my F3. Much more refined than the previous F2 that I had before and is on par with my Santa Cruz.

 

[vash]

My last soundcard came with the breakout box: Hercules GTXP. The card sounds great and the functionality of an external box, that isn't tied to a bay on my PC has made me 10x happier than the previous card (no breakout box at all). Get an audio card with a breakout box for plugging in USB/firewire, etc, it makes for much easier toying with your system later.

vash