Do I need a sound card ?

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leoftw

Gawd
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Apr 6, 2007
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I listen to music mainly through my headphones all the time , I have some cheap sony headphones right now , they cost me 1$ at a yard sale about a year ago so I need a major upgrade. I have chosen these below:


Sennheiser 555

I was thinking of a 80-100 Sound Card but do I really need it.

I was thinking about this

Creative XFI

Right now I have some basic internal sound card : its handled by a Realtek sound driver .

I really want my earphones to really thump so I'm wondering if a sound card would do this.



Since I'm a noob at this audio stuff I need some help. Oh and FYI; I haven't ordered any earphones yet. My Fiance complains about hearing music coming from my earphones so maybe these won't cover up the sound or will they .



So to rephrase my question . What is the perfect headphone setup under 200$
 
leoftw said:
what the difference between both of these x-fi xtremegamers
Click to expand...

In short, the half-height card is trash. Be warned that if you're running Vista, particularly with 4GB of RAM, the X-Fi drivers are the root of all evil. To the point that I sold mine to an XP user. (No -- seriously. I prefer the Realtek HD onboard to the X-Fi in Vista. Creative needs to get with it and stop making excuses -- no other sound card company is having the issues they are.)
 
Oh snap I run 4gb or ram and have vista, is this only 64bit drivers because I run 32bit Vista Ultimate .
 
leoftw said:
Oh snap I run 4gb or ram and have vista, is this only 64bit drivers because I run 32bit Vista Ultimate .
Click to expand...

Nope, they pretty much all suck. Also, if you have 4GB of RAM you should be running 64bit. As is you're not able to use all your RAM.
 
silent-circuit said:
In short, the half-height card is trash.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say that at all.

In fact, I'd argue the exact opposite.

The DACs are the same. The chip is the same. Everything is the same, really - there are only 2 major differences:

- The 'Fatal1ty' edition has onboard "X-Ram" which can, theoretically, slightly improve performance in games by decompressing all the game audio onto the soundcard rather than keeping the compressed audio in system ram to be decompressed on-the-fly while playing. However, the game has to specifically support this, and less than half a dozen games actually do (Battlefield 2, 2142, and Prey are about it, AFAIK)
- However, the major plus on the other (half-height) card is that it actually supports your case's "front panel" connections. IE., if you have an HD Audio front panel jack on your PC case (and many modern cases do), it can plug right into the X-Fi with no adapter or anything needed. Complete with headphone detection that mutes the rear speakers when you plug a headphone into the front jack, etc. DEFINITELY worth getting!
 
dderidex said:
I wouldn't say that at all.

In fact, I'd argue the exact opposite.

The DACs are the same. The chip is the same. Everything is the same, really - there are only 2 major differences:

- The 'Fatal1ty' edition has onboard "X-Ram" which can, theoretically, slightly improve performance in games by decompressing all the game audio onto the soundcard rather than keeping the compressed audio in system ram to be decompressed on-the-fly while playing. However, the game has to specifically support this, and less than half a dozen games actually do (Battlefield 2, 2142, and Prey are about it, AFAIK)
- However, the major plus on the other (half-height) card is that it actually supports your case's "front panel" connections. IE., if you have an HD Audio front panel jack on your PC case (and many modern cases do), it can plug right into the X-Fi with no adapter or anything needed. Complete with headphone detection that mutes the rear speakers when you plug a headphone into the front jack, etc. DEFINITELY worth getting!
Click to expand...



Alright, things have obviously changed. I was thinking the half-height XtremeMusic card. Sorry for the misdirection.
 
silent-circuit said:
Nope, they pretty much all suck. Also, if you have 4GB of RAM you should be running 64bit. As is you're not able to use all your RAM.
Click to expand...


I'll upgrade later , I don't even need 4GB's of ram to be honest . The most I probably will ever use is 3.0 so there is really no need to upgrade to 64bit for me . This computer came with it so I had no option :p
 
dderidex said:
I wouldn't say that at all.

In fact, I'd argue the exact opposite.

The DACs are the same. The chip is the same. Everything is the same, really - there are only 2 major differences:

- The 'Fatal1ty' edition has onboard "X-Ram" which can, theoretically, slightly improve performance in games by decompressing all the game audio onto the soundcard rather than keeping the compressed audio in system ram to be decompressed on-the-fly while playing. However, the game has to specifically support this, and less than half a dozen games actually do (Battlefield 2, 2142, and Prey are about it, AFAIK)
- However, the major plus on the other (half-height) card is that it actually supports your case's "front panel" connections. IE., if you have an HD Audio front panel jack on your PC case (and many modern cases do), it can plug right into the X-Fi with no adapter or anything needed. Complete with headphone detection that mutes the rear speakers when you plug a headphone into the front jack, etc. DEFINITELY worth getting!
Click to expand...


Thanks for this great informative post . I'm really scared now since people are having issues with X-FI drivers :( has anybody with vista have success with them ?

Any other info on headphones for under 99 would be great !
 
leoftw said:
Thanks for this great informative post . I'm really scared now since people are having issues with X-FI drivers :( has anybody with vista have success with them ?
Click to expand...

Ya some of us have. I run 64-bit Vista with the X-Fi drivers and for the most part, they work. I get an occasional BSOD, which is really annoying, but primarily when using ALchemy. However sound playback works fine.

Why does it work for me? Can't tell you. I don't know what I did different than anyone else. Seems to be a hit or miss thing. Maybe hardware, I dunno.
 
leoftw said:
Thanks for this great informative post . I'm really scared now since people are having issues with X-FI drivers :( has anybody with vista have success with them ?

Any other info on headphones for under 99 would be great !
Click to expand...

I have Vista 64 and 4GB of ram with an X-Fi XtremeGamer (half-height variety) and I haven't really had any issues. I don't really game though
 
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