Sounds Cards

[Koudelka]

Is it even worth it to buy a sound card these days?

Creative hasnt come out with anything new in a long time, their drivers are absolute garbage, EAX rarely ever works and when it does it is buggy and crashes. Sound timing is off in cutscenes of 50% of games as well, sometimes very badly.

I've had the XFI Plat for a while now and i've always had sound blaster cards but i'm starting to think they're more trouble than their worth and a waste of money.

Are there any other legimate cards out there or do people get the same high quality audio from onboard now?

Just curious if anyone even buys sound cards anymore.

Thanks!

 

[Zap]

Usually not worth it, but can be depending on your particular needs. I've only purchased one sound card in the past four years, and it sits in the garage collecting dust.

The reasons to get a sound card:
1) If your onboard sound is borked for some reason (not often, but yes it happens).
2) If your onboard sound picks up system noise (more rare since AC97 was replaced by HD Audio/Azaelia).
3) If you wear out the jacks of your onboard sound. A friend of mine did this by switching between speakers and headphones often, sometimes multiple times a day.
4) If you really, really want EAX to work, then an X-Fi of some kind is probably the best choice.
5) If you need an output that onboard doesn't give you. For instance, some cheap boards don't even have SPDIF headers.
6) If you want to use expensive headphones, some high end sound cards have built-in headphone amplifiers and upgradable OPAMPs.
7) If you live in the past and still think onboard audio = crap. This happens more often than you think.
8) If you feel a compulsion to use one. Seriously, I knew someone who HAD to fill EVERY slot of their ATX motherboard with... something. I bet some psychologist would have something to say about that. Anyways, he did SLI, Killer NIC, PhysX and sound, and filled EVERY single slot, albeit with IMO mostly useless stuff.

 

[DesiPower]

I have always had bad luck with onboards, three of them.
One always used to make a high pitch noise, replaced it with an OLD soundblaster that supported 4.1.
Second one had static, as if you are watching some OLD OLD movie in a theater. Slammed in a el-cheapo 4.1 card from ebay, $4.99 = fixed
Third some somehow had terribly low volume on the back speakers, no amount of configuration fixed it, again, I dug up an old Turtle Beach Santa Cruse and wallah...

So basically I hate on boards, they have always sucked for me... PIC/add-on is extremely important.

 

[boondocks]

I'm pretty happy with the onboard Realtek in my new build; I finally gave my old Audigy 2ZS a home in a box.
It really depends on your needs. Any card I have must have analog and sp/dif out.
Would like to have a card with DTS interactive, but my old Creative DTS-610 unit works good for streaming to my HT on a 50' toslink.

 

[Ultralight]

HT Omega and Asus' Xonar series would be the only two I would seriously consider for a sound card.

 

[Zap]

I have always had bad luck with onboards, three of them.
One always used to make a high pitch noise, replaced it with an OLD soundblaster that supported 4.1.
Second one had static, as if you are watching some OLD OLD movie in a theater. Slammed in a el-cheapo 4.1 card from ebay, $4.99 = fixed
Third some somehow had terribly low volume on the back speakers, no amount of configuration fixed it, again, I dug up an old Turtle Beach Santa Cruse and wallah...

So basically I hate on boards, they have always sucked for me... PIC/add-on is extremely important.

I loved my Santa Cruz sound card. Still have it in the garage somewhere, collecting dust.

I've had two motherboards give some noise (electrical/static sounding?) but I think those were AC97. One was pretty bad but the other wasn't very noticeable. The one that was pretty bad was my Abit IS7. It was a known issue that ALL of them had this sound problem, so it was a bad implementation.

I also had an HD audio motherboard with a pretty much broken Mic input.

Other than that, HD audio has worked reasonably nice for me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_High_Definition_Audio

Intel High Definition Audio (also called HD Audio or Azalia) refers to the specification released by Intel in 2004[1] for delivering high-definition audio that is capable of playing back more channels at higher quality than previous integrated audio codecs like AC'97. During development it had the codename Azalia.

 

[stahlhart]

7) If you live in the past and still think onboard audio = crap. This happens more often than you think.

(takes bow)

 

[kamikazekyle]

I've taken to using a small USB DAC, and sometimes a Headstage headphone amp. I mostly went with the DAC so I could have consistent sound no matter what system I used it on, plus it has a few extra features built in like a rehostat volume control, preamp, stereo RCA and digital coax out. It expands the options for older systems and laptops that might not have those features. It's also handy for cases that don't have minijack headers on the front but have USB headers. The built-in volume control also comes in majorly handy for headphones.

Really, though, I've found onboard HD to be just fine for daily use so long as there isn't a grounding issue. One of my laptops had such a bad grounding issue with the minijack port I had to rip out the ground plug on the power cable to get rid of the hum (it was louder than whatever was playing). Pretty much everything else "high end" has gone to external DACs -- USB, SPDIF, etc.

 

[Leyawiin]

I did a little experimenting just a few weeks ago. I have a mobo with Realtek HD and it was always fine. I had an Audigy 2 Value card gathering dust and decided to see if I could tell a difference with my Sennheiser PC161 headphones I use for games and music. I used a driver package from contributer "daniel_k" at the Creative forums. Installed the most recent drivers for it (which are a year old btw) and all the peripheral apps with zero problems. I'm no audiophile so I don't know all the terms, but the difference between that old Audigy 2 Value and current onboard was like night and day. The sound card had much stronger, richer, detailed sound. The Audigy is hardware accelerated (still on XP) but I couldn't tell any difference in FPS with games (not with a modern CPU vs. the old single core PC the card used to be in). Basically, the sound card is staying in my system. It is better.

 

[Zap]

The sound card had much stronger, richer, detailed sound.

Creative Labs tunes their sound cards to sound a certain way. People have ripped off their OPAMPS and stuck them in other sound cards (Auzentech), and found that the other sound card now sounds like a Creative Labs card.

What I want to know is... how accurate is the sound?

 

[theevilsharpie]

I recently upgraded from onboard Realtek HD audio to a Xonar Essense STX. Things that I immediately noticed:

- Much better sound quality of my headphones, which I expected
- Much better sound quality of my amplified desk speakers, which I wasn't expecting
- An equalizer that actually works; the Realtek equalizer simply distorts the sound if the EQ is anything other than perfectly neutral
- Better stereo separation
- There is absolutely no audible hum or other white noise at higher volumes

All in all, I felt the upgrade was worth it.

HD audio is perfectly sufficient if you have an external DAC connected via SPDIF, but a sound card can still provide benefits if it's directly driving an analog speaker.

 

[Ross Ridge]

Usually not worth it, but can be depending on your particular needs. I've only purchased one sound card in the past four years, and it sits in the garage collecting dust.

The reasons to get a sound card:
...

Yah, other than for the reasons Zap gave you shouldn't need to buy a soundcard. Use your motherboard's built-in soundcard, and only replace it if and when it you find a problem with it. It's free so you might as well use it.

 

[Jimmah]

I've had nothing but bad luck with discrete sound cards. Had an Audigy that exploded, a Live! value that crashed things all the time, an Audigy 2 that would work for a while then cause freezes in certain games, then hard reset the system.

Currently rocking an SB Live! 24-bit card as I don't have the cash to get anything better and my onboard crapped itself.

 

[Makaveli]

After switching to a newer cooler on my GPU I no longer had room in my system for a PCI X-fi music so switched to the onboard sound of my P6T Deluxe V2 and while it was alright I noticed a difference in sound quality. I picked up a PCI E Creative Sound Blaster X-FI TITANIUM Fatality Pro.

During music and movie playback aswell as game the audio just sounded stronger and with better seperation on the creative card.

I'm using a 4.1 Speaker system Logitech Z560

YMMV but for me I noticed a difference.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I'm not certain but I feel Open AL causes input lag in Ureal Tournament III.. Since then I've turned off all features of the Xtreme Gamer X-Fi card.

 

[Imp]

Creative actually did release a new line of stuff last summer. It's the X-fi HD or THX line. Internal card is $150-ish, but 2.1 over analog only IIRC.

I've tried using onboard. The difference is huge compared to an X-fi with a reasonably computer speaker set-up (Z-2300s) and my current $500+ hi-fi set-up.

 

[KGB]

Am I the only one who still misses Soundstorm?

 

[birthdaymonkey]

I used to have an m-Audio Audiophile 2496 card in the days of shitty onboard sound... it was the only reasonably priced card I could find at the time with RCA jacks instead of 3.5mm. It served me well for years under XP but m-Audio utterly failed with their Win7 drivers. (Why is it that sound card manufacturers seem to have so much difficulty with drivers??)

After trying onboard sound on newer motherboards and a couple inexpensive USB DACs I eventually decided to revamp my stereo system and bought a Peachtree Audio Decco2 50-wpc integrated amp and DAC... cost $800 but it's a lovely piece of kit and recommended to anyone who wants to build a more serious music computer (has SPDIF, toslink, USB, and analog inputs)

I just use onboard sound with my gaming/browsing machine.

 

[Xenon14]

Another vote for a Asus Xonar card. Even their cheap cards are amazing. Can't go wrong with Xonar, especially when on a budget.

 

[Zap]

Am I the only one who still misses Soundstorm?

Maybe. It was good... compared to AC97.

 

[SniperWulf]

If you want an inexpensive alternative, look into the Asus Xonar DG. Usually runs $30 or less

 

[Fhistleb]

If you want an inexpensive alternative, look into the Asus Xonar DG. Usually runs $30 or less

I actually bought one, needless to say i'm pretty happy with it. The Placebo Effect with the sound card is awesome

 

[skipsneeky2]

always had a thing for the cards asus included in some of their rog motherboards i had the x38 maximus man i had my friend talking about that mobo he could tell the difference in sound and quality

 

[mfenn]

I actually bought one, needless to say i'm pretty happy with it. The Placebo Effect with the sound card is awesome

There is that.

 

[dawp]

last sound card I bought was a hercules digifire 7.1 but they never would update their drivers and totally stopped when win7 came out. that one had some good sound quality to it.