Is it worth it ?

[holy god of nil]

I have an audigy 2zs and 7.1 creative speakers and apart from the fact that i have had no problems, i find audio quality to be not too far off that which my very expenive seperates produce. Obviously there is a relativley marked difference in sound quality but my seperates all in cost at least 2 times as much.

[aidanjt]

And there's that too.

[pp05]

Bearing that in mind exclaiming that nobody should purchase a Creative sound card is just silly.

Ok fair point and i should have said IMO because after all it was just my opinion. Whilst i'm clearing that up I will also say for thread starter because he is looking for accurate information on which to buy products.. My experiences of creative pc sound cards were SoundBlaster during years 2000-2002 on VIA chipset and AMD CPU.

So maybe creative have got there act together and supply wonderful products that work just great and the drivers fab. Personally though i still won't buy creative internal soundcard as i have had less problems without them than with.

[aidanjt]

VIA chipsets started turning into steaming crap at that point, maybe that was your problem.. between 2001-2003 I've owned 2 VIA based motherboards, both with faulty northbridges.

Which was another reason why I went back to Intel, for an all round stable system.

[Tin Ribs]

Its good to get info from numerous sources and I appreciate everyones personal opinion. Every product has people with good and bad experiences so it is helping me decide. I must say the Turtle beach montego ddl looks ideal ( seems a good price and a good card) but I cant seem to find it in the UK. So I have found a place that does OEM X-FI for £73 or an Audigy 4 can be had for £40.

[Nox]

Turtle Beach are Videologic in the UK. My old Videologic Sonicfury even had turtle beach santa cruz stamped onto the PCB.

Nox

[Tin Ribs]

Thanks Nox will try Videologic. Any idea what the montego ddl is in Videologic

[EtheAv8r]

Not a lot of point adding an expensive, hi quality sound card if you don't match it with decent speakers and or headphones (if that is how you listen).

If it is added frame rates you are after, a separate sound card will help, but if you are simply after better sounf for music etc, than you will find just better speakers on their own driven off the built in sound will be a great improvement.

Whether you go 2.1 or 5.1 (or 7.1) really depands on what you want better sound for (and space is a consideration). If better music is the main driver, stick with 2.1, and fewer speakers will = better quality for a given outlay.

[GFiSH]

I always used to but a seperate soundcard, had an audigy platinum for a while, but I hardly ever used all the functions. Since upgrading my PC a year or so ago I sold the card and went on board, haven't even thought about going back until recently, I have a USB headset at the minute so not sure if it'll be worth it for me or not.

[TooNice]

For gaming, Creative is remains one of the better options.

For music, sure, there are alternatives. Starting from Envy24 based card, you also have the choice of EMU 0404, 1212, 1820 etc. All depending how much you are willing to spend.

[Tin Ribs]

Theres plenty of alternatives for me to look into. As far as speakers go I have seen Klipsch promedia with brilliant reviews but again I cant get them in the UK.
Anyone got any or Know where to get some (2.1) as they seem the business.
Its typical of me always wanting what I cant get.

As an alternative Overclockers have Acoustic Energy Aego M 2.1 Speakers which have had good reviews also.

[merlin2001]

personally never had any problems with creative's kit and that goes all the way back to soundblaster 16. would personally recommend going for 5.1 speakers if you like to play any games (especially fps) as the positional sound really improves the immersiveness (and gives you an edge when people try to sneak up behind you). good speakers will prob. give you more of a boost in sound quality than a soundcard.
for a cheap, but effective, boost- go for creative audigy4 OEM (£40) paired with creative P5800 5.1 (also £40). although you can get much better, you would need to be an audiophile to really justify spending more (imho)....

[cheechy]

Currently have an Audigy 1 and recently took it out due to the fact that I found out that it was the component that was causing issues with EAX and games crashing / freezing and crashing to desktop.

I've had no issues like that since I got fed up and took it out.

edit: even more annoying considering the drivers have dried up for this card and its the Platinum model. They just never seemed to have ever got the drivers right for this generation of card

[kalniel]

I've been fine with creative too, however EAX is sometimes buggy in games. So if that's the case, just turn off EAX and it's still great.

[aidanjt]

I've been fine with creative too, however EAX is sometimes buggy in games. So if that's the case, just turn off EAX and it's still great.

Me too, although bare in mind that many EAX bugs are down to sloppy engine implimentation, and often game engine patches fix this.. For e.g. Doom 3 had a horrible EAX implimentation, but now with Doom 3 1.3 and the latest drivers for my Audigy 2 ZS it sounds bloody amazing.

[Tin Ribs]

Couldnt resist the X-Fi especially as it was on Today only. Just need some speakers now.