Soundcard Advice

I'm looking to buy a soundcard for my 3xs system to replace the onboard sound on my p8z68 Motherboard. It must have a front panel audio connector that I can just unplug off my motherboard and plug straight into the soundcard and needs to be PCI interface...Im happy to pay up to about £80 ish.....the main uses will be gaming and listening to music.....I just want to improve the quality of the onboard sound.

Thx in advance. I would like to order this asap while the wife is away so quick advice preferred :):):)

Will you use Headphones or Speakers?

Hi Spoons,

i can highly recommend the Asus Xonar range. Fantastic card! If you have a spare PCI-E slot i would recommend the Xonar DX (LN22613)

If not, The Xonar DG LN35199 would be a good bet, or if you have a quality pair or headphones / speakers the Xonar D2 LN19696

regards,
Rob

Thx for the reply guys, I read a review somewhere and someone was complaining that he had to run a power connector to his Xonar DX , is this correct? if so is this also true of the Xonar D2 as this is the model I will probably get, but don't really want to have to run a power cable to it...also does the Xonar D2 have a front panel connector.
I have a decent set of speakers and use a sennheiser pc350 headset

Many thx for your input...I want to try and get this ordered later so I can fit it Friday :)

Just been reading a bit further and I thing the D2 needs a floppy connector, however I did find this Rob
Asus Xonar DS LN27692

Hi,

Apologies for the late response!

A lot of the higher end cards do need a power connector, normally a floppy drive connector. Depending on your case, you can normally hide the rest of the cable down the side of the PSU, so you can keep things looking tidy!

The DS doesn't require a power connection and also has the front panel connectivity - so probably the ideal card for you! I'm fairly sure the DS also auto-switches when you plug in front panel devices. In most other Asus models you need to manually select the output within the software.

Once you get the card, you can disable the on-board audio in the BIOS. Occasionally having both enabled can cause conflicts.

Regards,
Rob

Thanks for the help and the info.......ordered and should be here tomorrow :)