need help with a sound card purchase

[dunnleed08]

i have a pretty old gaming rig...which i, quite unwillingly, am unable to upgrade..i do, however, want to get a sound card to enhance gameplay...maybe free the processor up a little....does anybody have a suggestion, as to which would be the cheapest card to accomplish this....i'm broke........preferably with eax 3.0....i don't really know what that is, but i've heard it is great for gameplay......thanks in advance, kyle

[Thermopylae_480]

You can get an Audigy SE 7.1 with EAX Advanced HD 3.0 for $32.99. Is that cheap enough?

[niko084]

Or this one
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829102010

Either way make it a creative or creative make if you want good game performance boosts, they do the best I think.

[Fiream]

Or this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829120103
This card has all kind of hacks for it and seems to be pretty highly regarded. I'm using one in a new build and it seems to be doing good so far. Sounds good with Quake III anyway. You have to use the Via supplied drivers rather than the Chaintech version. Picked mine up from Zipzoomfly, $25.00 shipped.

[niko084]

Originally Posted by Fiream

Or this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829120103
This card has all kind of hacks for it and seems to be pretty highly regarded. I'm using one in a new build and it seems to be doing good so far. Sounds good with Quake III anyway. You have to use the Via supplied drivers rather than the Chaintech version. Picked mine up from Zipzoomfly, $25.00 shipped.

Read it... No EAX support

[DrunkenMafia]

Originally Posted by Fiream

Or this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829120103
This card has all kind of hacks for it and seems to be pretty highly regarded. I'm using one in a new build and it seems to be doing good so far. Sounds good with Quake III anyway. You have to use the Via supplied drivers rather than the Chaintech version. Picked mine up from Zipzoomfly, $25.00 shipped.

this review from newegg would be enough to put me off gettin one man....

"Unstable drivers! Chaintech no longer makes audio cards and their website doesn't even acknowledge that they ever did make audio cards, so don't bother looking for driver support from them. If Chaintech provided a good driver, I would probably be rating this 5 Eggs, but can only give it a 3 because of all the hours I wasted trying different driver versions in hopes of eliminating the 'squeal of death' that often starts at bootup, and other issues. If you aren't an audiophile and don't need SPDIF or have high-definition sound sources, this card is not worth the trouble. If you're just playing regular CD's or MP3's and not upsampling, you will not hear any difference with the much vaunted high-bit-rate 2 channel mode. Also, whenever I switch back to regular 2-channel, I lose the left channel. This can be remedied, as can the 'squeal of death' by disabling/enabling the Envy 24 in Device Manager, but it's just another hassle that makes this card not worth the trouble for me."

[Thermopylae_480]

I searched for quite some time for some Chaintech drivers. I never found it for the card I was searching for.

[Namslas90]

Originally Posted by Thermopylae_480

I searched for quite some time for some Chaintech drivers. I never found it for the card I was searching for.

Chaintek Drivers are available at VIA. The drivers for the CHAINTECH AV-710 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI Interface Sound Cardcard are here;

http://driverscollection.com/?H=Envy24HT-S&By=VIA

[Sovereign]

Originally Posted by niko084

Read it... No EAX support

Maybe so but do your research and google that card. It has gotten high praise from hardware review sites around the net. Also, it does support EAX up to 2.0, at least that is what it is telling me in Battlefield 2. I bought this card awhile back to replace my Auzentech X-Mystique that I bought new and had to sell because I was going broke at the time. AS far as I can tell, it has been an incredible sound card and offers nice sound quality, especialy for the price!!!

I don't think you'll find a non creative card under $50 USD that can compete with the VIA Envy chipset. VIA also maintains up to date XP and Vista Drivers for this and other VIA chipset sound cards so driver issues should never be a problem. They certainly haven't for me and I'm using MCE'05 as well as Vista Ultimate X86 RTM. You can get official VIA drivers @ www.viaarena.com