Creative Value cards? such as Audigy 2.

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Need a basic gaming soundcard, cheap!

Creative's card's usually offload the most sound processing from the cpu, best performance in gaming, this has been shown from my experience and on many review sites.

I'm not personally a fan of creative's software and drivers, notice I still use a fortissimo and I'm perfectly happy. Good, not great, game performance and stable, no-bloat, drivers. Creative card's don't work in my system anyway. Tried 3 in the past and they crackly and buzz and all around frustrating.

Anyway, back on topic, Do the value cards loose any of this gaming sound acceleration? What are the drawbacks comparing Audigy 2 vs. Audigy 2 Value?

I think the latest X-Fi is probably overkill.

 

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Or maybe even something like this Audigy SE? What does that mean? Sound quality is of little concern, mainly interested in how well it off-loads sound processing from the cpu during gaming compared to onboard Realtek solutions.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102003

 

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Take that back, one of the reviewers says that it doesn't work so well with Oblivion, that would be a serious downfall for him.