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whats a good cheap soundcard?

B

bobdelt

Senior member
So I'm looking to get a sound card. I just ordered a new desktop with the asus p5b and I heard the onboard sound is kind of crappy. I mostly listen to music and watch movies with my pc. The quality of my music is the biggest concern.

My pc will hook up to my samsung stereo via a toslink spdif cable.
I don't play many games and dont care for things like EAX.

So whats the best reasonable price sound card for me? I looked at the old audigy cards but they dont seem to have toslink cables. And I'm afraid that the cheaper via envy cards wont be better than on board sound.

Idealy I would like to keep it as cheap as possible, under 50 for sure, unless there a big difference in quality and a good sale going on, then I might consider a card closer to 100 bucks.


Thanks.
 
Originally posted by: PurdueRy
Chaintech AV-710

That's all you need to know 😉
Click to expand...


Best card I ever had :thumbsup:

If you're going to receive one...just make sure to download the real envy24 drivers @ via. The ones that came with the CD does not work..or help for that matter 😛
 
Yep, Chaintech AV-710. Head over to www.viaarena.com to grab the latest VIA Envy24 driver set and you are ready to go. This card is also extremely good for 2.1 analog (great sounding music) when using the back surround jack (speakers 7&8 black jack) due to the Wolfson DAC. Cool thing about this card is the price--about $25!!!
 
Do the drives for this card still have issues for when changing the volume slider messes up the L/R channel volumes? The cards been sitting in my closest for a while now because ive had no use for it, and if i sold it - i wouldnt get much $$ for it.
 
If you are using the digital out it's going to sound exactly the same as the same as the on board audio, so a sound card will net you nothing.
 
well i heard the onboard sound has trouble even playing mp3's.... but i was going to wait until i actually heard before i ordered
 
Originally posted by: bobdelt
well i heard the onboard sound has trouble even playing mp3's.... but i was going to wait until i actually heard before i ordered
Click to expand...

The Asus P5B uses a higher-end Analog Devices HD chip, so you're likely going to get very good sound quality. MP3 playback has nothing to do with the sound card/chip.
 
Newegg has it listed with just ac97 audio codec, so orginally I thought only the p5b deluxe had the good audio chip, but when I went to asus's website it showed that it had the HD chip. So I shouldn't need a sound card. I guess that review on newegg who claimed the onboard sound was junk was an idiot, which seems like most of them.
 
Originally posted by: bobdelt
Newegg has it listed with just ac97 audio codec, so orginally I thought only the p5b deluxe had the good audio chip, but when I went to asus's website it showed that it had the HD chip. So I shouldn't need a sound card. I guess that review on newegg who claimed the onboard sound was junk was an idiot, which seems like most of them.
Click to expand...
Yeah, you have to careful with what you read on Newegg reviews, many/most of them are worthless.
 
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