cheap vista sound card

[ShadowFold]

I have an Audigy 4 right now. The drivers for Vista/7 are absolutely terrible, causes all sorts of microphone anomalies and the sound quality is not that great compared to XP. I should have 50-60$, is there any good sound cards in that range that have great Vista/7 drivers? I know the ASUS Xonar are very good, but they're 80$. Or should I just save up for the Xonar?

[erocker]

Originally Posted by ShadowFold

I have an Audigy 4 right now. The drivers for Vista/7 are absolutely terrible, causes all sorts of microphone anomalies and the sound quality is not that great compared to XP. I should have 50-60$, is there any good sound cards in that range that have great Vista/7 drivers? I know the ASUS Xonar are very good, but they're 80$. Or should I just save up for the Xonar?

People are going to beat me with a fake internet stick for this but I recommend the SB Extreme Audio card. Been using mine with Vista and 7 without problems. Sound quality is good and lots of db's. And it's cheap.

[ShadowFold]

Do they use different drivers or something?

[erocker]

No idea, but I know it works great on both my Intel and AMD rigs.

[Paintface]

extreme audio isnt as good as audigy 4 quality wise though , i had both.

But if you look for perfect driver support... i wouldnt go near creative, scrap those extra 10 bucks together and get a xonar, wont regret it and will last you for years.

[Kursah]

SB Extreme Audio and Extreme Music have treated me extremely well in Vista x86, x64, 7 x64 and x86. Drivers have been great for well over a year on my end on x64. Many gripe, and maybe I lucked out because I chose a lower end x-fi that works fine with drivers (I've had buddies buy higher end x-fi's only to have more headaches than any add-in card should ever allow, while my cheap X-Fi xtreme music keeps on workin as it should). Definately a good way to go, I guess it comes down to what you want shadowfold, I'd say lower-end x-fi or pay way more for xonar stuff.

[craigo]

Hi shadowfold,

Just looking at the spec of your mainboard,Which of the in/outputs do you use on your current card? your board seems to have quite a capable audio solution (Realtek ALC888) Have you tried the onboard solution? Apparently if you have withdrawls you can still install all of the Creative malware anyway...its your cheapest solution and will unclutter your system...Im sure the drivers are good....maybe you need Creative hardware for the gameport or cdrom...no wait.

Cheers,
Craig0.