Sound card help

O

OlIv0rIolI

Gawd
Joined
Dec 2, 2005
Messages
634
I am looking to purchase a decent sound card. This will be my first sound card purchase. I got tired of hearing the static and clicking noise from motherboard audio. I am not an audiophile...at least not yet...so I want something that gives me clean sound at an affordable price somewhere around 80 dollars.

I have a logitech 5.1 sound system that was $100 when I bought it 4 years ago. After reading the newbie guide thread on sound systems in this forum, I realized it is probably crap. Anyway I use a cheap headphones for 90% of the time. I use both xp64 and vista64. I also have cyberpower UPS. I watch a lot of movies and tv shows and anime on my pc. I listen to mostly classical music along with some pop bands. And I would really prefer the sound card be PCI-E but PCI is fine too only if it is low profile. Any help would be appreciated.

I took a look at this one on newegg, not too sure how good it is but it does have the name xonar in it http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132006
 
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If I was buying a sound card today for regular gaming and music and movies as you suggest, I would look at Auzentech, HTOmega, Asus and then pick the product with the features that match my budget (or PCI v. PCIe needs).

I believe that all of these cards have Vista drivers (even if they are running in 32-bit emulation on Vista64)... but know that Windows 7 drivers may still be on the horizon and unavilable yet.
 
All in all it would be rather strange to overlook X-Fi Xtreme Gamer card (low profile, PCI).
This card is rock solid, comes with good drivers (including some betas for Windows 7 already) and costs 55 bucks. There is PCI-e version as well, called Titanium - but its more expensive and not low profile.
(Unlike Xonar cards this PCI-e card is actually a real PCI-e stuff not a PCI card with a bridge to PCI-e connector.) Both X-Fi cards process full EAX in hardware which might matter if you play games that support it and there is still plenty around that do.
 
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Thanks, I was looking at some of the cards you suggested. I am mostly concerned about the quality of these cards and if they are better than my onboard sound.

I was checking the omega striker comments on newegg, many say it has problems with vista64. any truth to this?
 
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