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PCI and PCI-E Question

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so I am looking for a new soundcard and was leaning towards PCI-e just so i didnt have to take up another slot and it keeps my PC more roomy

but my question is this, is PCI better than PCI-E? Is there a difference? What exactly makes the difference? Thanks for your help!
 

Kursah

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There's really no difference, you don't get any more from going PCI-e at this point...PCI is too fast for soundcards as it is iirc...it's nice to see PCI-e sound cards though! There is no difference really, aside from the X-Fi Extreme Audio PCI-E is not an X-FI but an Audigy2 iirc...so if going for X-Fi keep that in mind.
 

btarunr

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so I am looking for a new soundcard and was leaning towards PCI-e just so i didnt have to take up another slot and it keeps my PC more roomy

but my question is this, is PCI better than PCI-E? Is there a difference? What exactly makes the difference? Thanks for your help!

Look for whether the chipset is a native PCI-E chipset or that which is originally PCI that uses PCI-E to PCI bus translation bridge (such as Xonar D2), it steps up latencies when performing ASIO tasks. For normal listening/gaming etc, instead of $150 on Xonar PCI-E, buy a X-Fi Titanium ; avoid that Xtreme Audio PCI-E.
 
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lol im not going to lie, i don't know a lot about sound cards. I am looking for a quality soundcard from (that wanna-be Asus Supreme FX) and i was actually looking at the xonar. I mostly game and occassionally listen to music on my 2 creative speakers or my bose headphones. I have a list of PCI-e sound cards and i was wondering if you could help me out, heres the list.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...cription=pci-e soundcards&bop=And&Order=PRICE

which would you pick?

thanks again!
 

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I've heard good things on that Xonar DX, good budget sound card with many D2 features and great sound. I've conteplated getting one someday...by my trusty X-Fi extreme music does a good job.

I would choose Xonar DX on budget, and X-Fi Titanium if price for sound isn't as big of a deal...if you must go PCI-e that is. But I'm not very educated in sound cards either, I did a lot of research and got a lot of help from TPU, Bta and other members, which is how I ended up with my X-Fi...it's been a mostly good situation, but it's had some annoyances (like unable to switch center/sub...all my most recent on-board sound could do it dammit! :D , popping sound that's been fixed with modded drivers, etc). Personally I'd go Xonar DX, it's supposed to be a pretty damn good card overall. But let's see what Beta has to day, and maybe even Imperialreign will get involved too! :D

:toast:
 

btarunr

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KBD

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buy a X-Fi Titanium ; avoid that Xtreme Audio PCI-E.

Second that, i just got my self the Titanium and it rocks! Sounds better than my Xtreme gamer and it has X-RAM, if you play games like Doom 3, Quake 4, Battlefield series, etc that take advantage of X-RAM you will see an improvement and from i've heard get more FPS.
If you gonna get it, get the the one without the front panel i/o shield, its pretty useless, most cases have front side mic & headphone connectors and you can hook up your card to those, no need to $70 extra for i/o shield.
 
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is the only difference between the X-FI professional and the X-Fi champion is the panel you get with it? is it the same exact card, just one comes with a panel??
 
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also, another question, if i have a mic input that is hooked from my sub and then that is hooked into the sound card, will that take away from sound quality? also if i have a panel with a headphone input that is hooked to the back of the soundcard, does that take away from sound quality than plugging my headphones right into the soundcard?

just something i've been wondering about for a while..

thanks again :D
 

btarunr

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also, another question, if i have a mic input that is hooked from my sub and then that is hooked into the sound card, will that take away from sound quality? also if i have a panel with a headphone input that is hooked to the back of the soundcard, does that take away from sound quality than plugging my headphones right into the soundcard?

just something i've been wondering about for a while..

thanks again :D

Interesting question. If your sub (actually the speaker set's amp) doesn't mess with the mic signal in any way (such as mic volume / boost / gain), then no, it might not affect the mic signal quality.

All that the Platinum (with the front-panel) gives is better connectivity. Since you're more into gaming, if you have no problems with your headset's cord reaching the back of your machine, you'll never need that Platinum package.
 
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so i was reading up on asus sound cards and asus mobo architecture and apparently asus makes their pci-e slots backwards? or something along those lines? so only asus sound cards can fit into Asus Mobos, called like pci-e 1 slot or something. Can anyone confirm this, I was going to get the X-FI professional as a replacemement for the Asus Supreme FX II

Also, Will the Asus Supreme FX II work in the Asus P5N32 SLI SE Deluxe Gaming Mobo? I am using the Striker II, but was going to give the Supreme FX II to a friend who has that gaming mobo.

thanks for the help again, much appreciated
 
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