Before I actually bought the card, I had decided to go with the Santa Cruz. It seemed to be a toss-up between the two for which one people like better, but the Santa Cruz edged out the Audigy by a few votes. When I got to Frys, they had the Audigy Gamer on sale so I decided to go with that. I can always use some extra games.
Installing the card was painless, and the automated installation did everything for me. I went ahead and downloaded the updates on Creative's website, but I really don't know if it was needed. It was working great before the updates.
I was using onboard sound (ac2001 on the chip), and noticed a fairly big improvement. I'm not a huge audio buff, but even I can appreciate the better sound quality. The sound seems much more accurate, and very crisp. The biggest thing I noticed was how much louder this card is when compared with onboard. The speakers will be blaring and there isn't any white noise.
There are alot of preset sounds that you can run, like concert hall, arena, bathroom, rock, etc. I haven't found any of those I like too well yet (and would appreciate some recomendations). The effects can really add some quality to your midrange, but overproduce the bass (at least in my opinion). Running without any effects sounds great though.
The lower cpu usage doesn't seem like a valid factor to get this card. I only ran the timedemo in Quake3 once, but I actually seemed to have lost a few frames. 215 to 212 is no big deal though, and I may need to go readjust my settings.
Overall, the card seems great and somebody looking to upgrade their sound should give it a thought. I bought it for the extra software that the Santa Cruz didn't have. I wish I could have listened to both cards, but I'm happy with my choice.
If anyone has any tips on which settings to use to make this card sound really amazing please let me know.
Installing the card was painless, and the automated installation did everything for me. I went ahead and downloaded the updates on Creative's website, but I really don't know if it was needed. It was working great before the updates.
I was using onboard sound (ac2001 on the chip), and noticed a fairly big improvement. I'm not a huge audio buff, but even I can appreciate the better sound quality. The sound seems much more accurate, and very crisp. The biggest thing I noticed was how much louder this card is when compared with onboard. The speakers will be blaring and there isn't any white noise.
There are alot of preset sounds that you can run, like concert hall, arena, bathroom, rock, etc. I haven't found any of those I like too well yet (and would appreciate some recomendations). The effects can really add some quality to your midrange, but overproduce the bass (at least in my opinion). Running without any effects sounds great though.
The lower cpu usage doesn't seem like a valid factor to get this card. I only ran the timedemo in Quake3 once, but I actually seemed to have lost a few frames. 215 to 212 is no big deal though, and I may need to go readjust my settings.
Overall, the card seems great and somebody looking to upgrade their sound should give it a thought. I bought it for the extra software that the Santa Cruz didn't have. I wish I could have listened to both cards, but I'm happy with my choice.
If anyone has any tips on which settings to use to make this card sound really amazing please let me know.
