nForce2 Users: Sound Card or Not?

[chizow]

Originally posted by: EdipisReks

Originally posted by: Dug
Not to mention that when you buy Nforce2 sound, you get a free motherboard with it
For $100 bucks you can't beat it.

that's a good way of looking at it . to continue the Audig2 stuff here, i have a set of Boston Acoustics BA4800's. they are fantastic sounding 4.1's, but they are analog. is the sound upgrade with the Audigy2 only for people running digital speakers?

No, its actually the opposite. You'll only be able to maximize the A2's features using the analog outputs of the card. With the A2, unlike the nForce2 which does real-time DD encoding, the digital output is only as good as the source as its simply passed through.

BD2003, interesting comparison, but I'm not sure why you feel 3D sound is being phased out. I think the trend is moving in the opposite direction, with 3D positional sound becoming more prominent with each new game released (I don't think I have purchased a game in the last year that doesn't have 3D sound support, 1/2 of them support EAX HD). I find positional sound to be invaluable in most of the games I play, particularly online FPSs. Ambient effects and tempo swings contribute to immersive gameplay in non-FPSs like RTS or RPGs...............

Chiz

 

[yhelothar]

i have soundstorm....

it sounds great, with my DD5.1 speakers... though it still uses a realtek DAC if you use analog speakers/headphones

if you had some <$200 speakers... the DAC would be fine.. but if you had some nice headphones, it would sound bad because of the low quality DAC...

i'd say sell the audigy... most people say the nforce2 sounds better and it's faster.... but even though the audigy does sound better, it won't by much.. and it's worth getting $50 for the card..

 

[EdipisReks]

but EAX 3.0 adds another dimension to the games that support it, and i imagine that more games will support it as time goes on.

 

[snidy1]

I use those same speakers and like audigy 2 better. As far as onboard sound goes, The Asus Nforce2 has the best IMO I just like audigy 2 a little better.

 

[Lysimachus]

Hmmm...I just have the plain Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live 5.1 sound card for $33.00. Since I don't have an Audigy, and some of you are comparing the Audigy with the onboard sound with the Asus A7N8X and Epox 8RDA+, would that mean that my onboard sound would probably sound better with my Creative Inspire 5.1 5200 5 Satellite speaker system than with my Sound Card????

My card does have EAX I know.

 

[snidy1]

Originally posted by: Lysimachus
Hmmm...I just have the plain Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live 5.1 sound card for $33.00. Since I don't have an Audigy, and some of you are comparing the Audigy with the onboard sound with the Asus A7N8X and Epox 8RDA+, would that mean that my onboard sound would probably sound better with my Creative Inspire 5.1 5200 5 Satellite speaker system than with my Sound Card????

My card does have EAX I know.

The Onboard is better than your card if you have the Asus Nforce2

 

[mboy]

I have the 8rda+ and traded away my sb live 5.1

 

[Auric]

Originally posted by: mboy
I bet the main components of my rig costs about the same if not les then yours and I will go bench for bench with u anyday.
I bet my XP2100 @ 2.3ghz costs me less then your celeron cost you.
U kind of come here and bash the nforce2 and AMD processors, yet u are pretty much bashing a top end product while u are running a bottom of the barrel rig with a Celeron.

Although money has not really been an issue, I kinda take a demented pride in resisting spending on upgrades and that my bargain-bin system still does the job. In fact, I got money back when I sold my previous BH6 and PIII for this ST6 and Celeron, then again when I sold my Live! with digital bracket for an Audigy. Likewise I hocked two memory sticks and bought one equivalent for less. Ditto I upgraded my CD-RW drive and got cash back. All those savings paid for the paltry $50 difference of a Radeon 9500 (moddable to 9700) over what I was able to sell my Radeon 8500 for. So I really have not spent anything on it for years and yet have maintained a very useable system. You've just gotta love eBay!

I am not bashing anything.

 

[Massonite]

One thing I'm wondering, if you use onboard sound won't it limit what you can connect due to there being only 3 inputs while a Fortissmo 3 (which I have) has 5 or 6 inputs?