Audionoob with some questions...

[Nakamori]

Hey guys, I'm currently using a creative 5.1 system at home, and I'm one of those guys who leaves my playlist going whenever my computer is on and not playing a game. However, I'm headed off to college in about a month, and space is at a premium. I purchased some SBS 270's to take to my dorm, and although I'm pleasantly suprised at the quality of the 'woofer-less two speaker system, I know that i'll be itching for some better sound down the road.

My question: Would getting a
Sound Blaster Live or an Av 710 improve my sound quality by any appreciable amount over my nvidia onboard audio? Also, I've heard that game performance increases when a soundcard is used because the audio now has a device 100% dedicated to it. Is this true?

 

[UnknownSouljer]

Well I dunno which nForce board you have, but it says you're using a Barton in your sig, so I'll assume NF2. If you're using soundstorm than the audio quality can not be much improved. There is some debate on whether the Soundstorm solution has better audio than the Audigy 2 but that's a different story. Now if you're using a nf2 board without Soundstorm, than upgrading to better audio card might be a good idea, however I can not say how well you will notice the upgrade with your current 2.0 setup.

From the 2 soundcards you listed, getting a SBlive is pretty much a downgrade from most any onboard solution at this point. The AV710 is a great budget card. If you're interested in upgrading the generally recommended one would probably be something like:

Audigy 2zs for the heavy gamer and occasional music user. Can be bought as a refurb for $40.
AV710 Budget quality music card. Has better DAC's than the Audigy 2 ZS.
HDA Mystique 7.1 For those whom want maximum input and output and are willing to spend a little more. Great musical audio. These can be had for arround $80.
If you want higher up than that for audio quality EMU is the first place to look.

If you are willing to spend more than that and you're a serious gamer, the X-fi just recently came out, and the overall impressions I hear are good. I'm not much of a creative fan but it more than has it's place on the market.

As for improving your game performace? Well it helps to a degree. Most of the time onboard sound solutions take away about 5% of the performance of your system in game. External solutions are usually from 2-3%. However the AV710 and the HDA Mystique can eat up more CPU cycles than even the onboard solution if you choose to use DD live! Some people think the frame hit or performance hit isn't worth it, but I think it's more than reasonable for what it does. If you're a heavy gamer and FPS really matters to you, than going for the Audigy 2 zs or the X-fi would probably be the best choice in that case.

 

[strid3r]

Actually, the Soundstorm implementation is pretty much the same as most onboard sound solutions when you are just using the analog outputs.

The Live! 24-bit is actually supposed to be pretty decent, better than the old Live! series. There has been some threads about it on head-fi. Not sure where you got that it is worse than onboard solutions (possibly referring to the older series?).

If you want extra performance in games, you'll want a Audigy 2 or above for EAX hardware support. Like UnknownSouljer says, the A2zs can be had for $40 (which seems a tad over your budget.) The X-fi would be way over it.

I think a sound card upgrade at this point will be wasted on the speakers. Since you said space is at a minimum, maybe you should invest in some headphones?