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Need sound card advice

J

Jarazix

n00b
Joined
Feb 23, 2007
Messages
43
Hello all,

My onboard x-fi/soudmax sound card is causing me a ton of headaches and crashes in games. I am looking for a discrete sound card, preferably digital output, but analog will do. I would like to stay away from the drive disaster that is creative. I was thinking of the asus essence, but 200 is a hard price tag to swallow. I could go that high, but don't want to if I don't have to.

Quality is important, but so is price to me. I am not up to date on current cards.
 
I currently have the Asus Essence and it's by far the best card I've owned. I rarely game though so I don't have any insight into that area. It has a great headphone amp and is probably the "truest sounding" card I've owned.

It's also a 2 channel card, so keep that in mind.

I upgraded from a Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer and previous to that I had an Audigy 2 ZS Gamer.

Riley
 
Jarazix said:
Hello all,

My onboard x-fi/soudmax sound card is causing me a ton of headaches and crashes in games. I am looking for a discrete sound card, preferably digital output, but analog will do. I would like to stay away from the drive disaster that is creative. I was thinking of the asus essence, but 200 is a hard price tag to swallow. I could go that high, but don't want to if I don't have to.

Quality is important, but so is price to me. I am not up to date on current cards.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking you mean SupremeFX, which is NOT an X-Fi (Soundmax != Creative), its an Asus onboard solution with Asus drivers, which is what Xonar will be, which is not to say its related to the Xonar parts

Xonar Essence STX/ST is only multi-ch via digital, and entirely not worth $200 if you're just using it for 5.1 digital output

look at HT Omega's Striker, Auzen's X-Plosion, Creative's X-Fi Titanium, or Asus Xonar D1 or DX (all are around or under $100, have DDL and DTS:C support, etc)
 
Naw I meant what I wrote. Its a soundmax card that's in software an x-fi. Not a true x-fi...its the asus gene 2
 
Now does the fact I run win7 x64 matter? I have heard of driver difficlties
 
Jarazix said:
Naw I meant what I wrote. Its a soundmax card that's in software an x-fi. Not a true x-fi...its the asus gene 2
Click to expand...


no, there is no "Soundmax X-Fi", there is SupremeFX and there is X-Fi, your card is labeled as X-Fi because it supports EAX 4 or some other marketing crap (which is inaccurate as well, X-Fi supports EAX 5 among other things), and regardless of all that, it isn't Creative drivers, Creative hardware, etc its an Asus/ADI concoction and judging Creative's boards by it is inaccurate

Jarazix said:
Now does the fact I run win7 x64 matter? I have heard of driver difficlties
Click to expand...

yes, that matters a lot
every single card I've suggested you has at least a dozen users quite foamy that it doesn't work in 7 x64 (guess it wasn't the 100% compatible with 100% of everything OS they sold it as, eh?)
 
Maybe one of the Auzentech X-Fi cards? Then you get the X-Fi tech without the Creative issues. The Forte gets good reviews.
 
Forceman said:
Maybe one of the Auzentech X-Fi cards? Then you get the X-Fi tech without the Creative issues. The Forte gets good reviews.
Click to expand...

Curious, what issues does Creative have with the X-Fi? I have the X-Fi XtremeGamer running on Windows XP and works great.
 
I am still using a Razer Barricuda AC-1 soundcard with matching headphones, love it to death!
 
FM 3370 said:
Curious, what issues does Creative have with the X-Fi? I have the X-Fi XtremeGamer running on Windows XP and works great.
Click to expand...

operate words being "Windows XP", with the advent of Windows Vista and now Windows 7, the entire audio side of Windows was re-designed, and it caused quite a bit of trouble for everyone

Creative took one of the worst beatings at the hands of Microsoft's upgrades (they also took all the blame), most of the Windows Vista issues have been resolved via workarounds, however many users are reporting issues with Windows 7 and audio, regardless of vendor (Creative, C-Media, etc)

FrEaKy said:
I am still using a Razer Barricuda AC-1 soundcard with matching headphones, love it to death!
Click to expand...

such a wonderful CMI8788 board it is, unfortunately no longer in production
however you can still buy the same chipset on boards from Asus, HT Omega, and bgears, and very similar chipsets on boards from Auzen, HT Omega, and Turtle Beach
 
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