Need a sound card for optical audio

[live4spd]

I'd like to replace the sound card on my mainboard since it's not working. I just want to get 5.1 or 7.1 audio through the optical output to a Yamaha receiver. What would you reccommend that's budget friendly for sound? Light gaming, mostly music etc. I'm hoping to be less then $50 but can go higher if necessary.

Thanks!

 

[BrightCandle]

Presumably your Receiver can deal with expanding the music etc to the speakers and you were happy with the previous on the motherboard solution? If so then you can get away with something from Startech or some other known super cheap brand. All your looking for is a card with optical out for 7.1 surround sound as either PCI or PCI-E to suit your motherboard and it'll likely list its self as AC97 compatible. While it should work I find that on these really low price cards that the drivers can sometimes be a real pain, but their value is hard to pass up when they can be less than $10.

If however you'd prefer to have something at least a little better known and with some processing power of its own then you can get Asus Xonar DG's for about £20 (so presumably about $20). They come with a headphone amp built in but all you need is the Toslink which it also has. You get to use the Asus suite of extras which may be useful especially for gaming and surround sound. It can also provide the sound processing for expanding your music to other speakers and it may do a better job than your Receiver at this. Its not very expensive and its the bottom of a very decent range of sound cards.

There are also X-fi cards well below $50 and they can serve you well but are more expensive than the Asus Xonar model and don't provide any features you are going to care about based on your expected usage.

 

[Anubis]

the Asus Xonar DGs are 11$ AR right now on egg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829132020

 

[live4spd]

Sounds good. for $20 I bought the Asus card. Thanks for the advice.

 

[BrightCandle]

Not only do us Brits get the stupid dollar = pound thing with computer hardware (which makes it 50% more expensive at least) but now the cards are half the price in the US! That makes me 3x as mad!

Next thing you'll be telling me you can get 3930k's for $300.

 

[live4spd]

Well if it makes you feel better the Chinese own half our debt and are dumping imports to drive out american businesses.

 

[weez82]

the Asus Xonar DGs are 11$ AR right now on egg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829132020

Look at the shipping costs, lol at newegg. I hate when they do that. So it's really $17 after rebate. Still a good deal though

 

[klopas]

I just returned the Xonar DG. Sound was amazing, but the card's microphone port never worked.

 

[live4spd]

Just got mine installed. Seems to work ok, but I don't care about the mic port so it will never get tested.