Any comments on a soundcard that won't cost me as much as my graphics card?
Definitely not made by Creative!
Many thanks.
Printable View
Any comments on a soundcard that won't cost me as much as my graphics card?
Definitely not made by Creative!
Many thanks.
Get a motherboard with a realtek HD chip. Will work better for just about anything as it's the most supported now.
asus ones;
http://www.scan.co.uk/Index.aspx?NT=1-0-42-73-0
probably the cheapest one.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=804924
Yep, onboard HD sound is perfect with a decent set of speakers, spending the money you save on a sound card on a better set of speakers will be a better choice if you have decent onboard sound
That looks tidy (bloody-well should be for more than half the price of my graphics card ---->whingemoangripe :rolleyes:) : PCI-E 1x for the first time maybe? Bookmarked. Thanks to the land of Mancastrians. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Infinite
Having played with an Asus Xonar for a bit now, I can say that they are really really nice cards.
I'm hearing the comments for onboard sound, but a new motherboard is quite an upheaval. Any suggestions for what would house an AM2 5600+ Brisbane and 2G of OCZ DDR2 for the same price as the Asus Xonar DX/XD? The board should also have the capacity to run 64bit Vista: 8 or 16GB RAM. (EDit: I should add, that this is one {probably the most powerful} of the integrated systems I will be working towards running.)
Needless to say, I would expect it to run the sound for all applications including any games: I have Tannoy 100W PBM 6.5 II's and a Yamaha 230W stereo amp.
Must be ATX, no SLI, no Xfire. :juggle:
Depends what you are looking for really. Under XP, I do find Creative to be good all-rounders. I've never used the Xonar, so can't comment there (I'd probably give it a shot if I went Vista for my desktop some day). If you care more about sound quality and don't care about multimedia features, the EMU 0404 or an entry level M-Audio would serve you well. Or you could even go for an entry level DAC (either USB or via the optical-out of your onboard sound card).
I am not a fan of onboard sound personally, I've yet to find one that doesn't sound bad with my Westone UM2 or sound good on an Beyerdynamic DT880. Even an upper end MM speakers sound better with a modern discrete card IMO.
If your toying with the idea of a soundcard OR a new motherboard.....unless the motherboard you have is bad, then a soundcard sounds like a no-brainer to me.
Your never going to get a motherboard with the sound quality of a half-decent add-in card.
i have always liked discrete sound cards. the sound quailty tends to be alot better than onboard and you tend to only need to buy 1 good sound card then you can continuously transfer them from computer to computer as you upgrade.
My X-Fi has been in 3 computers and is still as good as ever dispite what people say about creative XD (and i have never had any driver problems dispite being on vista, so ha)
I followed a review of the Xonar DX/XD here:Quote:
Originally Posted by Infinite
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/
....and the only thing I can find that gives me more to think about is this:
So now the idea is to look for a "hardware based" soundcard: I bet these are the ones that cost twice as much?Quote:
Originally Posted by www.hardwarecanucks.com
I was going to say "could you go any further on that Infinite" which would be difficult. :rolleyes:
(Infinite: The idea is to boycott CREATIVE by getting rid of my soundblaster! :))
Aren't the ideas of boycotting Creative and using hardware accelerated sound mutually exclusive?
I've seen some of the older auzentech cards go on ebay for around 30 notes.
Might be worth checking if you don't mind second hand.
The only cheap "hardware based" gaming option is the X-Fi, in fact that's probably the only proper hardware based card out there since Creative have been a tight so-and-so over EAX technology.
I find my Asus Xonar DX hardly puts any load on the CPU when processing EAX5 via the CPU, plus hardly any games are fully dual/quad core optimised meaning the sound processing is of loaded the core least loaded by the game anyway so there is minimal difference either way.
.....err, I'm not sure? I heard about the Vista drivers scenario several months ago:Quote:
Originally Posted by kalniel
http://forums.creative.com/creativel...read.id=116332
I already own an Audigy soundcard; I just thought that next time around it would be nice to try and escape such a blatant "lockin" monopoly.
Could you explain the bit about the loading on the CPU again please?Quote:
Originally Posted by DDY
EAX 5 for example is processed on the X-Fi card itself where the Xonar DX uses the CPU to process it. The X-Fi was the only soundcard which supported EAX 5 until ASUS managed to write drivers which allowed EAX5 to be processed without the X-Fi chip meaning it's done on the CPU.
If you had an X-Fi the EAX5 processing will be done on card and not on the CPU, if you had the Xonar the EAX5 processing will be done with the CPU which increases CPU load. However, the CPU load is tiny (about 0.5%) and secondly with multi core CPUs the processing is done on a core which isn't used by the game. Basically you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the X-Fi and Xonar since modern CPUs are so fast and multi cored.
But, EAX5 is a DirectSound extension which does not feature on Vista, the X-Fi gets around this problem using ALchemy which converts DirectSound to OpenAL (which Vista uses), all the hard work is done on the CPU. Ultimately under Vista; EAX5 processing on both the X-Fi and Xonar is done on the CPU so the above is void if you use Vista!
Still, that's just EAX5 which a few games use, I don't think any more games in the future will use it since Direct Sound was dropped on Vista. Both cards under XP process Direct Sound sans EAX on chip, most tests show that the Xonar has a lower CPU load albeit a tiny one.
Thanks DDY, that's a spot-on explanation!
This would then make the Xonar DX/XD a good choice for my 5600+ X2 and XP PRO and it would also ensure future-proofing as I make my way towards Vista
So it looks like MS is also doing a bit towards the Creative boycott itself then?
The Xonar will go great with your rig, you won't regret it!
I got the Xonar DX from SCAN and I'm pleased to say that it's working fine. I'm "testing" it with Hellgate, London, where I have noticed an increase in the transparency of the sound: This means that the 2 to 10KHz(ish) spectrum must more evenly represented. The framerate of the game has also improved at intense times.
Great stuff. Thanks agian for the tips. :)