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| Thread ID: 42675 | 2004-02-18 22:47:00 | soundcards | floyds (3095) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 216527 | 2004-02-18 22:47:00 | at the moment im just using the onboard soundcard from my motherboard and am looking at getting a seperate souncard.... my question are ... how much improvement should i expect whats a good card, ive been looking at the augigys? cheers |
floyds (3095) | ||
| 216528 | 2004-02-19 00:24:00 | Depends what you want to use it for and what your expectations are and what your starting point is (current). If you want better sound for music and videos decent sound card and speakers is the way to go you might add gaming to that if it has to be just so for the experience but personally I wouldn't bother for games unless you have a problem. Audigy is a good place to start looking and lots of dosh will help prevent disappointment if you require HiFi results. Cheers Murray P |
Murray P (44) | ||
| 216529 | 2004-02-19 00:31:00 | > how much improvement should i expect Depends on what motherboard/onboard sound you have. Some of the newer mobos have onboard sound that can rival some sound cards. ;-) |
Fire-and-Ice (3910) | ||
| 216530 | 2004-02-19 00:41:00 | If you have USB2 on your PC you should consider an Audigy 2NX external sound card ($260 from Ascent Technology) -- sound quality is fabulous -- I have it hooked via the Optical out to my home theatre receiver -- sound is great. Wasn't too bad on USB1.1 either but adding a $35 USB2 PCI card made it just that better. Otherwise I have an internal Audigy 2 card in my main PC and that gives great sound as well. Cheers C. Ali |
Chemical Ali (118) | ||
| 216531 | 2004-02-19 01:17:00 | The three areas that a standalone sound card help are. 1,Game Performence.Onboard sound can and does use the cpu,this can cause slowdowns in games,especially when the cpu is running at 100 percent and the audio decides it wants to play 32 sounds simultainisly.Or in some cases where a particular sound will will cause a moments pause.MCM2 was a shocker for this when passing underneath the start/finish gate. 2.Video capturing performence.Onboard sound causes much more problems with out-of-sync audio and bad quality audio when used to capture video/audio from an anologue source. 3.Sound quality.Even an aging soundblaster live gives far better tone and clarity then 99 percent of onboard sound.The difference is quite dramatic.This applies whether gaming,listining to music or watching a dvd,video. Then you get the fact that soundcards come with a gameport,which is missing off probally all motherboards built in the last year or so(which blows when you have a force feedback steering wheel that cost 300 bucks and plugs into a gameport) And a soundblaster/audigy does a much better job of 5.1,and is the only way to go if you want 6.1(gotta love overkill). Due to the difference in price i still just buy soundblaster live 5.1's,but if you have the money then the audigy range is the way to go. |
metla (154) | ||
| 216532 | 2004-02-19 01:27:00 | have to agree with melta on this one, but just to add my 2cents worth. Stay away from external USB based sounds solutions as they are considerably taxing on the system and often cost more than a quality PCI based soundcard. The Audigy range by Creative is deffinalty worth looking in to. Just decide what your needs are and match it to a soundcard with the features you need. The SBLive is awsome value at under $100. But its worth considering what form of onboard sound you currently have as some onboard now rivals the quality of the SBLive e.g nForce 2 Soundstorm. | Pete O'Neil (250) | ||
| 216533 | 2004-02-19 01:31:00 | thanks guys, ive come across this soundcard, anyone know much about it? - Creative Soudblaster Audigy MP3+ with Firewire - thanx again floyd ps i want it mainly for mp3s then tv and lastly gaming. |
floyds (3095) | ||
| 216534 | 2004-02-19 01:41:00 | Arh good ole creative suckering in ppl as usual. Just buy a stock Audigy, the only difference between this and the one you listed is that it comes with **cough**cough** really great MP3 software **cough**cough** so unless your a totally newbie or have a phobia of downloading software of the net the cheapest Audigy is as good as the flashy one. | Pete O'Neil (250) | ||
| 216535 | 2004-02-19 01:42:00 | oh and that particular model isnt avaliable in NZ, and just check www.pricespy.co.nz for prices | Pete O'Neil (250) | ||
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