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Audigy soundcard advice
Hi all,
might be able to get hold of one of these to replace current onboard sound:
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...eful&offset=20
one of the reviews says it does'nt work well with MSI KT600 mobo - which I have ?? any opinions/experiences ?? maybe it's a driver issue ??
thanks in advance Pimpy
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done a bit more reading .............
from Creative website comparison:
http://www.soundblaster.com/products...ct=10653&nav=3
2 Value > 2ZS - only different is no Firewire/Gold connectors & no dolby THX certification.
Am I right ??
Only used for gaming so not really worried about that. Thx Pimpy
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I have seen many people claim that Creative sound cards don't work well in <insert motherboard chipset here>
As someone who has used Creative soundcards since the SoundBlaster 2.0 (ISA!) and changes motherboards almost as much as I do my underwear, I have yet to come across ANY motherboard that didn't want to play ball with a Creative soundcard.
The Audigy 2 (all versions) are nice cards and a most definate improvment over any on-board sound.
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Just make sure you find out the returns policy for the retailer. Its a great card, i highly recommend it and it can be picked up for around £30 now. Persoanlly i think the X-fi has been over hyped myself (unless you listen to really low bitrate MP3's, but why would you do that?). I can see myself ever needing anything other that a Audigy 2 Zs.
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thanks guys.
so once I get an audigy 2 of some flavour i should be OK for gaming. Pimpy
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yep - great cards. I really appreciated the move from on-board to audigy 2 when i made it...
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i think the difference is the zs has 7.1 and the 2 is 6.1, thats definately the difference between the platinum pro versions of each anyway.
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Nearly £50 seems a bit steep when you can get the Audigy 4 OEM from Scan for £40-odd.
Is the 2 a better card than the 4?
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The 2 ZS is a better card than the 4
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Most Audigy 2 cards can be softmodded to use the newer Audigy 4 software apps/drivers. Works well tried it earlier.
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The 2ZS is probably the best card, in terms of connectors, quality etc.
The 4 is the next best, being a tweaked ZS, the 2 Value is the next best, also being a tweaked ZS, finally the normal 2 is the worse of the range, as it isn't a ZS, and misses some logic for some frequency mixing or something weird.
But any of the 2ZS/4/2 Value are great cards for gaming. They should work on most boards, but the creative drivers are always a bit hit and miss - I suspect the X-Fi's best feature is actually more robust drivers. However, it usually just takes a bit of fiddling to get the audigy working fine (and making sure 'helper' programs don't load into memory), when they are working the sound is great!
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Always found that Creative's driver support was good just after launch, then slowly gets worse. They never seem to organize their support section well, so it's difficult at times even working out which one you need!
Yeah - as kalniel said - the 4 is just a tweaked 2 ZS - better DACs and thats about it.
If you buy OEM - then you may or may not get gold plated jacks and/or a firewire port. You may also get a lower signal to noise ratio - but it's not much (max 4db) - It's hard to say, since for the 2 there where 4 or 5 different OEM versions.
The 2 Value basically is an OEM version of the 2 ZS - no firewire, no joystick port (header is probably there, but no port) and no gold.
Hope this helps!
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I just use the creative auto update tool, identifies your card and checks for updates.