Need help choosing a new soundcard!

[nsweet]

I am currently looking to purchase a new sound card for my gaming / HTPC setup in my basement. Currently it has an onboard "Realtec HD" built in to the motherboard for audio.

The computer I am running this on is used for a lot of music playing, some movie watching, and a bit of gaming.

I just purchased Logitech Z-5500's to replace the aging 5.1 setup I had before, and while they where a massive improvement I have noticed a bit of noise at higher volumes that I do not hear in my living room setup, and figured this "noise" was due to my onboard audio. I have read this is a common issue with the cheaper onboard sound solutions motherboard manufacturers use.

So I figured since I just spent a bit of money on a decent 5.1 speaker setup that I should make it sound even better by pairing it with a nice higher end sound card. The Z-5500's sound very nice for the price, in some respects they actually sound pretty comparable to my much pricier setup in my living room, and if I could eliminate the noise at higher volume they would come very comparible sound wise to my $1000+ 5.1 setup in my living room.

This brings me to my current issue... which soundcard is the best for a HTPC / Gaming setup? And how would it be best hooked up?

I have heard all kinds of hype about EAX 5.0 and X-Fi, but have no idea how much of a difference either make on decent speakers. I have been looking at this card:

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion 70SB046A00003 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI Interface Sound Card - Retail
Which Newegg has on sale for $129.99 Shipped (After $50 MIR)

However I am reading a lot of people are having a lot of problems with this card's drivers.

Is there a better alternative that someone can suggest I consider?

My main goal is to have TRUE 5.1 surround in both games and movies, as well as making my MP3 collection sound as good as possible, without breaking the bank to do so (< $150 or so is my budget).

Also is TOSLINK the best option for hooking up the Z-5500's?

Thanks in advance for any advice that anyone might be able to give me!




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esquared
Anandtech Senior Moderator

 

[jamesbond007]

You may want to check out the cards from Auzentech. They offer a great deal of capabilities based on the X-Fi chip. I've heard only good things about them.

I got tired of Creative's drivers and am going with the PCI-Express soundcard that came with my ASUS Rampage Forumla motherboard. So far, I haven't been let down as EAX is supported by the games I've tried. I am using a Mini3 headphone amp on a pair of Sennheiser HD590 and have been happy with the card!

Good luck,
~Travis

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: nsweet
I have heard all kinds of hype about EAX 5.0 and X-Fi, but have no idea how much of a difference either make on decent speakers. I have been looking at this card:

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion 70SB046A00003 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI Interface Sound Card - Retail
Which Newegg has on sale for $129.99 Shipped (After $50 MIR)

However I am reading a lot of people are having a lot of problems with this card's drivers.

If gaming is important to you then yes EAX 5.0 and an X-Fi are well worth it. There's simply no comparison to an X-Fi working properly in a game that supports EAX 5.0. If you search around you'll see the Asus solutions that "emulate" EAX are not the answer here either.

Is there a better alternative that someone can suggest I consider?

My main goal is to have TRUE 5.1 surround in both games and movies, as well as making my MP3 collection sound as good as possible, without breaking the bank to do so (< $150 or so is my budget).

Also is TOSLINK the best option for hooking up the Z-5500's?

Thanks in advance for any advice that anyone might be able to give me!

If you want to keep it simple, you will want either the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1 or the X-Fi Titanium PCI-E. 1st one is PCI, 2nd one is PCI-E which may eliminate some of the PCI bus/chipset problems that have troubled the X-Fi over the years. The important thing for you is that both do DDLive encoding and output over s/pdif which would then be decoded by your Z-5500. Otherwise you would need analog multichannel inputs for older X-Fi, although Creative has promised new drivers that enable DDLive on existing X-Fi parts. Toslink or digital coax are both fine, although people say digital coax is less lossy you will probably not notice any difference.

Best solution though has not yet been released. Auzentech is planning to release a PCI-E HDMI 1.3 X-Fi which will be the best option for PC sound. It will compete with the Asus Xonar 1.3 except it will have EAX 5.0 that actually works.