What sound card should I go with?

[brikis98]

I planning on building a new rig in a few months for the following uses (only listing those affected by sound):

* Movies & TV: HD, DVD, divx
* Games: 3d shooters, mostly
* Occasional music: my mp3 collection

i am definitely in favor of bang-for-the-buck sound and NOT an audiophile. my computer is connected to:

* Logitech z640 5.1: one of the cheapest 5.1 systems you can get. sound quality is great for the price i paid (~$40) but is by no means mind blowing
* A pair of cheap headphones similar to what you get with an ipod

So the question is, what would be my best choice for sound in the new rig:

1. On-board sound card: I'm not sure which mobo I'll get, but probably one of the recent Asus, Gigabyte or MSI boards with the P35 or X38 chipset
2. Original Soundblaster Audigy: I use this thing in my current rig, it's about 5 years old, gets the job done, but I have no idea how much better newer cards are these days or if it'll work w/ Vista & the new rig.
3. A new sound card: If so, which one? And given my speakers/headphones, would I be able to tell the difference?

Note that I'll *probably* be running Vista on the new machine.

 

[plautus]

I recently bought an M-Audio Revolution 5.1 and I am very pleased. It's much better than my Sound-Blaster Audigy. $55 at Newegg. Downside: the accompanying software is skimpy.

 

[NoelS]

brikis,

Try on-board sound first after you build your system. If you don't like the on-board sound when you use it, THEN buy the card...

Why waste the money for a card if you, an admitted non-audiophile, can't discern the difference in the sound?

Noel

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: NoelS
brikis,

Try on-board sound first after you build your system. If you don't like the on-board sound when you use it, THEN buy the card...

Why waste the money for a card if you, an admitted non-audiophile, can't discern the difference in the sound?

Noel

ROFL! +1

 

[JackMDS]

Originally posted by: NoelS
Try on-board sound first after you build your system. If you don't like the on-board sound when you use it, THEN buy the card...?

Noel

Simple honest logic. :thumbsup:

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: NoelS
brikis,

Try on-board sound first after you build your system. If you don't like the on-board sound when you use it, THEN buy the card...

Why waste the money for a card if you, an admitted non-audiophile, can't discern the difference in the sound?

Noel

haha, i appreciate the opinion

to be fair, i'm a non-audiophile not because i can't discern the difference in the sound, but mostly because i don't care that much about it. the real question is whether i'd be able to discern a sound card upgrade given the speakers/headphones i use.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: brikis98

Originally posted by: NoelS
brikis,

Try on-board sound first after you build your system. If you don't like the on-board sound when you use it, THEN buy the card...

Why waste the money for a card if you, an admitted non-audiophile, can't discern the difference in the sound?

Noel

haha, i appreciate the opinion

to be fair, i'm a non-audiophile not because i can't discern the difference in the sound, but mostly because i don't care that much about it. the real question is whether i'd be able to discern a sound card upgrade given the speakers/headphones i use.

I consider myself an audiophile for as much a one as I can be, and while I can discern the difference, I can't discern which necessarily sounds better. Just go with the onboard; you'll be happy.

 

[Blain]

Go with a card, you need the extra FPS.
> ASUS Xonar D2X (PCI Express) <

 

[Ika]

With your speakers and headphones, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Heck, I'd be surprised if you could tell the difference between 128kbps and FLAC on what you're using (maybe not the speakers, I haven't tried them, but cheap headphones are usually no good).

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: Blain
Go with a card, you need the extra FPS.
> ASUS Xonar D2X (PCI Express) <

how much of a performance difference are we talking about here?

 

[Andvari]

A few fps. Supposedly, multicore processors don't lose FPS as long as the game isn't using all the cores (leaving one free to process the onboard sound). I don't know if that's true or not.


I'm building a new PC tomorrow with onboard sound, and Klipsh Ultra 5.1's. I have an Audigy 2 in my current PC. If I don't like onboard, I'll try the Audigy. If that turns out to be buggy with Vista 64, I'll get an X-Fi XtremeGamer.

(I ordered 2 500gb hard drives, but I'm realizing I probably won't use that much space and will probably send one back which will pay for the X-Fi heh.)

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: Andvari
A few fps. Supposedly, multicore processors don't lose FPS as long as the game isn't using all the cores (leaving one free to process the onboard sound). I don't know if that's true or not.


I'm building a new PC tomorrow with onboard sound, and Klipsh Ultra 5.1's. I have an Audigy 2 in my current PC. If I don't like onboard, I'll try the Audigy. If that turns out to be buggy with Vista 64, I'll get an X-Fi XtremeGamer.

(I ordered 2 500gb hard drives, but I'm realizing I probably won't use that much space and will probably send one back which will pay for the X-Fi heh.)

i'd be curious to hear your results if you don't mind posting them, including which mobo you use and how it sounds compared to the audigy 2. of course, your speakers are significantly better than mine, so you'll prob be able to discern the difference much more, but i'd still be interested.

 

[Andvari]

Sure, I'll let you know in the coming days (assuming my mobo arrives. currently the tracking info is kinda fishy). I'll be using a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R, if you're wondering.

 

[shingletingle]

Originally posted by: Andvari
A few fps. Supposedly, multicore processors don't lose FPS as long as the game isn't using all the cores (leaving one free to process the onboard sound). I don't know if that's true or not.


I'm building a new PC tomorrow with onboard sound, and Klipsh Ultra 5.1's. I have an Audigy 2 in my current PC. If I don't like onboard, I'll try the Audigy. If that turns out to be buggy with Vista 64, I'll get an X-Fi XtremeGamer.

(I ordered 2 500gb hard drives, but I'm realizing I probably won't use that much space and will probably send one back which will pay for the X-Fi heh.)

Since you have the Klipsch speakers (I have the same ones), it would be a shame not to upgrade your soundcard. I'm not an audiophile either, but I can hear a difference. I'm using an X-Fi XtremeMusic. Nowadays, I think you can find the X-Fi XtremeGamer (the true X-Fi, not the Creative budget one) for around $50 or $75 if you look around or wait for deals.

 

[nerp]

Avoid creative labs like the plague.

Get an m-audio audiophile 2496, revolution 5.1 or another card based on the Envy24 chipset.

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: nerp
Avoid creative labs like the plague.

how come?

 

[Andvari]

I too would like to know why one should avoid Creative. Like them or not, they seem to have the most support for games, EAX, Windows, etc. Quality might be better in certain other cards, but the compatibility could be iffy.

 

[Blain]

You'd better stick with your onboard audio. It will be good enough...
You don't need any better than that.

 

[Roguestar]

Onboard.

 

[Ghouler]

Originally posted by: brikis98

Originally posted by: Blain
Go with a card, you need the extra FPS.
> ASUS Xonar D2X (PCI Express) <

how much of a performance difference are we talking about here?

With Xonar the FPS performance is not better or worse
compared to Soundblaster or onboard sound
but it is good to note that
Xonar takes more CPU cycles then any other sound card

As for now you can't go wrong with Sound Blaster X-Fi Gamer
Costs well under $100 as well.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Andvari
I too would like to know why one should avoid Creative.

Overpriced. Can't download full drivers, only updates (don't know if this has changed). Bloatware drivers. In the past was known to have spyware as part of drivers.

 

[shingletingle]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: Andvari
I too would like to know why one should avoid Creative.

Overpriced. Can't download full drivers, only updates (don't know if this has changed). Bloatware drivers. In the past was known to have spyware as part of drivers.

Huh? Can't download full drivers? I've been downloading the full drivers off their site for years.

When I read comments like this, it makes me wonder if people say avoid Creative because they just want to be on the "avoid Creative" bandwagon.

I've been using my X-Fi XtremeMusic with XP Pro and Vista 32-bit with no issues.

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: Ghouler
As for now you can't go wrong with Sound Blaster X-Fi Gamer
Costs well under $100 as well.

See, you could use the good quality onboard 7.1 surround until he decides in the meantime.
Costs as little as $free.

 

[nerp]

Creative cards are consumer junk disguised as professional quality. Filtering, funky processing, shoddy DACs, misrepresented specs, bloated drivers, poor support, postprocessing filters that muddy the sound and enhancements to make up for cruddy DACs and oscillators, bad midi support, synch issues, and let us not forget all the historical blunders in creative's legacy:

PCI corruption
IRQ conflicts
Claims of 24/96 but it's really downsampling for it's 48khz DAC and upsampling the output signal (garbage cheese)

And to this day, creative cards suck up so much PCI bandwidth you can easily encounter clipping and other distortion when other PCI devices are in use.

For less money, you can get MUCH better sound. I think the bandwagon rolling through town is the one that states Creative cards are good value and produce good sound. Just look at some signal to noise ratio graphs or do some side by side comparisons with balanced monitors.

If you care about quality, unfettered, unmodified, un "specially enhanced to sound awesome" effects that really are just a way to disguise lower quality parts, sound, you're not buying creative just like you're not buying $69 logitech speakers. If you care about sound, you want an Envy24 card and good quality speakers designed around accurate and clean signal reproduction -- two things logitech and creative labs are NOT known for and likely never will be. Just read some decent stereo and audio magazines at your local newsstand and you'll start to see that there are two worlds in audio: the world of people who want to listen to music the way it sounds and the people who want to impress their friends with bright colors, cool looking logos and license-plate rattling, overinflated bass.

Connoisseur or trash. Your choice.

 

[Ghouler]

It is not that black and white as you would like to see it I think.

Originally posted by: nerp
and let us not forget all the historical blunders in creative's legacy:
PCI corruption
IRQ conflicts
Claims of 24/96 but it's really downsampling for it's 48khz DAC and upsampling the output signal (garbage cheese)es

None of these applies to X-Fi sound cards. X-Fi can clock at 96KHz. Not that it matters for CD, DVD movies or games that are clocked at 48 or 44.1 kHz.

Originally posted by: nerp
And to this day, creative cards suck up so much PCI bandwidth you can easily encounter clipping and other distorition when other PCI devices are in use.

It is not PCI bandwidth. It is PCI latency - how long a device can access PCI bus.
This settings differs for various systems and can be set individually in BIOS.

Originally posted by: nerp
For less money, you can get MUCH better sound. I think the bandwagon rolling through town is the one that states Creative cards are good value and produce good sound. Just look at some signal to noise ratio graphs or do some side by side comparisons with balanced monitors.

I think you should have a look yourself before firing your bullets at Creative, e.g.:

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/13874/8

Originally posted by: nerp
If you care about sound, you want an Envy24 card and good quality speakers designed around accurate and clean signal reproduction -- two things logitech and creative labs are NOT known for and likely never will be.

Except for using caps lock - how can you say Envy24 chip is better then e.g. X-fi chip or ALC889 chip? Or do you JUST KNOW?

Originally posted by: nerp
Just read some decent stereo and audio magazines at your local newsstand and you'll start to see that there are two worlds in audio: the world of people who want to listen to music the way it soudns and the people who want to impress their friends with bright colors, cool looking logos and license-plate rattling, overinflated bass.
Conniseur or trash. Your choice.

{Have you ever considered career in drama? }

Audio magazines are full of BS. Have not seen a single independent review in years. I know where you are coming from though - the whole ipod generation thing + butt kicker gaming speakers, this is bad indeed.

{Btw. "Conniseur" is spelled a bit differently. Google it together with anything else you might have on mind before posting.

Or was it just a bad day at work?}

On a positive note - I think most of the sound cards on the market right now are excellent.

A lot depends on what you expect and what you plan to do with a sound card. Home recording gear and a gaming rig might work better if they use hardware that matches the purpose.