Recommend me a soundcard

[breezer]

Howdy guys.

Im in the process of buying and building a PC.

Could you recommend me a sound card? I have in my current PC a soundblaster (dont know which model), but its 5.1, and iv had it for probably 4 years now, its rather dusty too.

I currently have a 2.1 speaker setup, and i play games and watch movies on my PC.

Could you recommend me a decent sound card, not a one thats going to bust my bank though.

Thanks

Ian

[FifthFreedom]

Does your Motherboard not have integrated sound?

Most modern ones do and many even have 5.1 for surround sound.

[breezer]

My current one does have.

And the new one im getting will have.

But im not a fan of integrated sound.

[FifthFreedom]

You may find you are suprised by the quality, some new motherboards have very good onboard sound.

If your not using expensive speakers many people wouldn't notice the difference...

So what budget would your sounds card be under?

£100? £300?

[zaphox]

Not Creative! Read this if you haven't already: http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...-creative.html

[Agent]

You may find you are suprised by the quality, some new motherboards have very good onboard sound.

If your not using expensive speakers many people wouldn't notice the difference...

So what budget would your sounds card be under?

£100? £300?

Yup, just took my words outa my mouth.

Todays onboard (and certainly the HD Audio) is very good. Easily on par with the Audigys IMO.

Auzentech and the ASUS cards are the only real ones worth looking at. Forget Creative these days. All marketing, no substance.

[s3ds]

I like these

Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

but note no jack plugs or front panel

In a HTPC with 2.1 i am using this

Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

i got it as a spare a long time ago as it was cheap and put it in the HTPC after problems with the onboard audio.
It works ok and cant complain at for the price

BTW I have not had/will not use creative since a friend had to buy a driver cd to get his card working in XP when he upgraded from win98

[DDY]

I like these

Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

but note no jack plugs or front panel

In a HTPC with 2.1 i am using this

Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

i got it as a spare a long time ago as it was cheap and put it in the HTPC after problems with the onboard audio.
It works ok and cant complain at for the price

BTW I have not had/will not use creative since a friend had to buy a driver cd to get his card working in XP when he upgraded from win98

First link (MA-2496) is not really for general use, it's mainly for computer musicians which is why it hasn't got 3.5mm jacks or front panel connections and it's no good for games etc.

The second link (Aureon) is rubbish (for new builds), a downgrade from modern onboard HDA IMO.

The Asus Xonar DX/XD has many favorable reviews, I'd probably go for one of these myself for my next build.

[breezer]

Well the motherboard il be getting is this:

Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

And my budget for a soundcard would be probably upto £30/40

[abaxas]

How about a trends ud-10?

I'd post links but I cant yet (grrr 5 min posts!)

Basically it's a little stereo only usb dac with 2.5inch or phono output. Audiophile recommended too

(this may be a little 'out of the box' for you, but if you computer involves lots of listening to music, then this comes highly recommeded by me! )

[aidanjt]

If your onboard sound chip is connected to a TOSLINK output, a good quality 5.1 setup with an onboard decoder will offload DSP processing to the decoder for most streams, which will mean that soundcard will make no difference to sound quality and make a descrete card option pointless. Something like the Logitech Z-5500, while pricey, is bloody good.

[DDY]

£30-£40 will not buy you a soundcard worth getting over the P5K-E onboard HDA, I'd say £50 is the minimum spend for a worth while soundcard.

The alternative is to buy a used soundcard, these you can get between £30-£40.

[TheReaFireblade]

I can heartily recommend the Terratec Aureon 7.1 as a good budget alternative to Creative cards.

I bought one for my son last year. He's running a set of Logitech X-530's through it, and the quality of sound is impressive for such a cheap setup

A M-Audio Revolution 5.1/7.1 would be another good option

[WoLFe]

You may find you are suprised by the quality, some new motherboards have very good onboard sound.

If your not using expensive speakers many people wouldn't notice the difference...

Hear hear, +1

[Agent]

If your onboard sound chip is connected to a TOSLINK output, a good quality 5.1 setup with an onboard decoder will offload DSP processing to the decoder for most streams, which will mean that soundcard will make no difference to sound quality and make a descrete card option pointless. Something like the Logitech Z-5500, while pricey, is bloody good.

You can't do 5.1 over TOSLINK without encoding the stream into Dolby Digital / DTS and having a receiver which can decode it.
Very few onboard soundchips have this

[Blackmage]

You can't do 5.1 over TOSLINK without encoding the stream into Dolby Digital / DTS and having a receiver which can decode it.
Very few onboard soundchips have this

Yep even many soundcards don't have this feature

This what i would buy

Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK