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What is the best Audio Card for Performance and Quality in Gaming/Windows?

M

Mackie2k

Senior member
Just building my new AMD64 box, don't really want to use the onboard 8.1 audio, although I heard it's not that bad...

Thoughts?

Mackie
 
Chaintech and Gainward make VIA Vinyl soundboards that are very nice for the money. I bought a Gainward Hollywood@Home 7.1 PCI card for $35 locally and I'm using the s/pdif optical out to hook up to a Dolby Digital receiver. It sounds sweet.

As dc5 mentioned though, most non-Audigy cards require a bit of a framerate hit to operate where the Creative cards do not.
 
I have to disagree with the previous posters. I have an AC'97 6.1 sound card that came integrated with my nforce 3 motherboard and for the life of me, I can't tell the difference between that and an expensive audigy. I believe that 99% of the cards that came out after the sound blaster 16 are a scam. The only real innovations since then have been multichannel sound (useful for games and movies), optical out (useful for 0.01% of those who buy the card) and MIDI/Synthetizer stuff (useful to 0.000000000001% of those who buy the card).

In conclusion, don't waste your money, use it for a keyboard, mouse, monitor, gpu, ram or whatever.
 
I'm gonna take a wild stab in the dark and assume you havent used a wide variety of games on that sound setup.
(Yes, I know making an assumption makes an ass out of U and Umption.)

I have a wide variety of games that were experiencing crackling and popping sounds on my AC'97 and USB Yamaha sound card. Since these devices never seem to get updated drivers there wasnt a lot I could do to fix it.
When I installed the Audigy card I got no rice krispy sounds in any games or multimedia programs.

It may use up more systems resources, and I hate updating drivers all the time. Even so, the quality from a company who was making computer audio products from the beginning cant be beat.


P.S. I still think Creative products are overpriced. Thing were better when they had real competition from Aureal.
 
Not to pile on gozulin here, but I too upgraded my AC '97 audio because of crackling and noise while playing certain games. Onboard audio is perfectly fine for 95% of all applications and most current motherboards offer excellent integrated sound quality, particularly if you're listening through regular computer speakers ($100 or less, let's say).

If you're playing back your PC sound through a quality home theater system (not a $79 Wal-Mart Dynabrand home theater) or a high end pair of headphones, you can hear appreciable differences between discrete soundcards and integrated audio. Integrated audio solutions are more susceptible to noise and interference than seperate audio cards.

I have gravely disliked Creative Labs solutions since Doom 2 was released. I had a Gravis Ultrasound Pro that sounded way better than the AWE 32 sound board, and it was $100 less expensive than the SB as well. I also remember selling white box computers when the SB Live series started shipping, and the Creative cards would cause Windows Protection Faults and blue screen the systems.

That having been said, I have read dozens of benchmarking articles over the years that show game performance with no sound, game performance with SoundBlaser card, and game performance with other sound solutions. I've never seen a performance review where any other sound solution resulted in as small of a framerate drop as a Sound Blaster.

Kudos to Creative for their powerful marketing abilities, but it'll take extraordinary circumstances for a SoundBlaster card to ever make it into one of my PCs ever again. I have a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card in one PC and a Gainward VIA Vinyl card in the other PC. They both sound way better than my AC '97 integrated audio and they were both way, way cheaper than comparable Sound Blaster cards.
 
Crackling and noise? I have to turn up the volume really high to notice them. Uncomfortably high actually. I've always attributed it to the speakers but i guess it could be the soundcard afterall.

to the OP:

Why don't you TRY the 8.1 integrated thingie you have and IF you're not satisfied, THEN go and buy an expensive soundcard. I'd recommend the Audigy 4 since it's the most expensive. Can't go wrong with expensive Creative Cards!!!
 
dude i don't know why you're recommending an Audigy 4 which is overpriced Audigy 2 ZS-wutever card. There are other companies out there that make way better cards than creative in terms of sound quality.
 
Originally posted by: elecrzy
dude i don't know why you're recommending an Audigy 4 which is overpriced Audigy 2 ZS-wutever card. There are other companies out there that make way better cards than creative in terms of sound quality.
Click to expand...

He suspected this. Thats why he asked for input. So........ INPUT!

Hercules Fortissmo cards usually support EAX 1 and 2. This is good for many games. And they have both TOS Link and Digital Coax right on the card. No breakout box needed.

Just Checked Hercules site. The only gamer card they currently have is the Gamesurround Muse 5.1
 
Originally posted by: gozulin
I have to disagree with the previous posters. I have an AC'97 6.1 sound card that came integrated with my nforce 3 motherboard and for the life of me, I can't tell the difference between that and an expensive audigy. I believe that 99% of the cards that came out after the sound blaster 16 are a scam. The only real innovations since then have been multichannel sound (useful for games and movies), optical out (useful for 0.01% of those who buy the card) and MIDI/Synthetizer stuff (useful to 0.000000000001% of those who buy the card).

In conclusion, don't waste your money, use it for a keyboard, mouse, monitor, gpu, ram or whatever.
Click to expand...
Lol, what are you using for comparison, $3 speakers? There are huge differences between audio solutions. Please don't spread misinformation.
 
Originally posted by: crazyeddie
I also remember selling white box computers when the SB Live series started shipping, and the Creative cards would cause Windows Protection Faults and blue screen the systems.
Click to expand...

Oh man, this always used to happen to me with my SB Live card. I finally yanked it out of my rig and have been reluctant to use Creative cards ever since. I've just been going onboard AC97 and nVidia Soundstorm... I really hope nVidia reconsiders their decision to kill Soundstorm, it could work great on an add-in card.

So it looks like all that is left is Creative, AC97 onboard, or Via cards. Has anyone ever heard one of those M-Audio cards based off the Via Envy chip?

-Adam in Philly
 
I was using onboard audio for a while. I was getting a hiss, which was noticable if there was no other noise in the room, and lower-quality sound decoding. Audigy 2 ZS is where it's at.
 
Originally posted by: doublejbass
I was using onboard audio for a while. I was getting a hiss, which was noticable if there was no other noise in the room, and lower-quality sound decoding. Audigy 2 ZS is where it's at.
Click to expand...
It's a good & clean card, and as mentioned offloads the CPU when supported for better framerates in games, but it does resample everything played through it. You can get better musical sound quality for as little as $25 with a Chaintech av710, though only through two channels, and you have to configure it to use the good DAC (the other 3 on the card are crap). I have both in my main rig.
 
I got an Audigy 2 Gamer pack 8 months ago at a good price. I like it a lot. And I actually *USE* the MIDI port. Nice to have.
 
I gave up trying to use my Audigy MP3 card, too many lock-ups and other crap with it. That, and bloated driver packages will keep me away (yeah, I know you can do a "driver only" install, but it still takes forever. I alternate between an M-Audio Audiophile 24/96, and built-in AC97 or whatever on my NF3 mobo.
 
A good, detailed review site for sound card spec comparison:
http://www.pcavtech.com/soundcards/compare/

When they used to show Audigy cards (last I recall seeing on this list was Audigy "1") it rated worse than the TB Santa Cruz cards.

I never cared for the Audigy series, but the new ones are supposedly pretty decent. I don't see the need in my setup, as I have my onboard KT133A board sound connected to my stereo/TV (part of my HTPC box) and have wonderful sound from it.
 
Originally posted by: Mackie2k
Just building my new AMD64 box, don't really want to use the onboard 8.1 audio, although I heard it's not that bad...

Thoughts?

Mackie
Click to expand...

If you have money to burn, burn it on a better set of speakers. You will get much better sound quality through a nicer set of speakers than a crappy set of speakers with an Audigy.

1) Speakers
2) Source (mp3, ogg, flac, wav quality, etc)
3) Audio Card

At least, this is how I deliberate on spending my money when it comes to audio.
 
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