Hi I haven't got a huge budget, can I get a decent gaming sound card for around £50 ?
What do you recommend ?
Hi I haven't got a huge budget, can I get a decent gaming sound card for around £50 ?
What do you recommend ?
I think so, I would recommend anything from Creative in you're price range. I have a 5 year old creative SB audigy 2 card in my system and has been great for all my gaming needs.
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE 7.1
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Extreme Audio PCI Sound Card 24Bit 7.1
Creative SoundBlaster X-FI Xtreme Gamer PCI 7.1
jamieuk23 (29-12-2009)
I would recommend an Asus Xonar DX. Just bought a PCI-E one for my pc, so I can use one of those otherwise [seemingly] useless slots.
I previously had a Creative X-Fi fatality gamer pro, but after I upgraded my mobo I couldn't fit it in a PCI slot as they were being obstructed by the graphics card (hence why I went for a PCI-E card in the Asus), so I sold it on ebay.
Have to say the Asus card has a far better interface and the sound is great. Cost around £50.
Also, something you can do with the Xonar is switch between the back panel and the front panel audio inputs through the interface, which I couldn't do with the creative. So I can have speakers plugged into the back but switch to a headset plugged in to the front when needed, and cut out the speakers.
Avoid the Xtreme Audio, being a host based audio processor. For gaming you'll want the card itself to be doing the processing, not your cpu.
XtremeGamer/XtremeMusic are the better old X-Fi's as well as the Xonar range from Asus. Otherwise onboard should handle it just fine... it's not like onboard kit is as terrible as it used to be; if anything to notice or justify any real difference you need to double that budget.
Moo.
Last edited by jonny440; 22-12-2009 at 09:55 PM.
No way, onboard audio is still unacceptable, especially for gaming. The ALC888 on my Abit IP35-E sounds decent for movies/music but it has horrible sound separation in games. When playing COD4 it wouldn't properly separate sounds from locations so I never knew where people were coming from. That's bad for FPS games.
I put back in my Audigy2 ZS and got updated drivers from Creative's website and everything was perfect. Even the old Audigy2 ZS could handle many channels of audio and separate them properly. I could easily tell where people were coming from at that point.
Are you on XP or Vista/Win 7?
If XP then creative cards are the best for gaming, and you can get great ones second hand. If Vista/Win 7 then they don't hold much advantage over other cards any more due to the lack of EAX support with anything but the very latest cards (and therefore games generally don't bother any more), so any of the Asus, Azuntech etc. are also worth considering.
I have had no problems with my X-Fi Gamer, would recommend it, but I have not owned a non Creative sound card.
Mobo: DFI LP X48 LT T2R Bios 2008/12/24
CPU: Intel Q6600 G0 @ 3.6ghz (400 x 9)
Ram: OCZ PC2-9200 4GB Flex II @ 1066mhz 5-5-5-15 2T
GC: HIS 5870 @ 900/1300 - Eyefinity
As title says........ PCI express
I'd guess anything from the other thread that you started would be good enough?
http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...ming-only.html
Asus Xonar range seems to be the choice...
wow I for got about that thread mate lol. I thought it was a dream !
Dont Asus cards not support this EAX 5.0 or what ever its called ?
Guys this is my choice which one is better for gaming only
Creative X-Fi Extreme Gamer Fatality Pro 64mb Xram - second hand £55
Asus DX - Brand new £55
????
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