what is a good sound card for gaming, music and other stuff?

[exscalibur99]

Hi..
my onboard sound (Realtek AC97) for my DFi Lanparty UT Ultra-D NF3 dead already...
I need some good and affordable sound card for this...

The sound card that I found right now for a good price is Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1.. is it good?
http://audiotrak.net/prodigy7.1LT.htm
some says it is not good for gaming.. got performance degrading when playing games.. so with this compared to my onboard sound which one got performance degrading more...?

...and got any other good affordable sound card recommended?

 

[Aevum]

for 30-50 bucks you can have a Emu10K based card,
from a sound blaster Live 24bit to an audigy,

depending on needs, you can choose the quality and channels you need

 

[Ketxxx]

in all honesty, spend the £s and then not worry about needing to upgrade your sound for 4-5yrs+. Soundcards are one of the few things that are worth splashing on. the audiotrak prodigy 192 is an awesome card. dont touch creative with a bargepole their crap in a nutshell without a massive post explaining why.

 

[G.T]

I'd like to know what the issue you feel is with Creative, cos I have one of their expensive cards and the results it gives are amazing.

 

[bbriand]

I tend to like creative as well. Until I pay off my current system and can afford a XiFi I picked up an Audigy 2LS (for $30 Canadian). Way better sound then my onboard plus it seems to require less CPU utilization than onboard.

Another thing you can do with onboard is set it up to headphones speaker type and use it for a dedicated TeamSpeak soundcard for your games.

Bill

 

[Ketxxx]

Compatibility problems on a lot of boards, infrequent, buggy, resource sapping, unflexible driver updates, expensive hardware that is dependent on software supporting it, ie XRAM. The list goes on..

Want me to contine further?

 

[G.T]

I've always used Creative cards and never had compatibility issues, bug issues, problems with resources running them etc etc. In fact the soundcard has always been the less problomatic area in my computers.

& so far the X-Fi has been awesome, both for Gaming and Music creation.

 

[cjoyce1980]

go on you know you wanna

 

[Ketxxx]

Oh yea? Want to explain those mystery crackle & pop noises almost every X-Fi user experiences then? Thers so many things wrong with creative stuff these days its difficult to know where to start lol

 

[G.T]

Oh yea? Want to explain those mystery crackle & pop noises almost every X-Fi user experiences then?

Letting your p00ter eat Rice Crispies is a no-no.

Not had the issue so can't comment to be honest.

 

[Ketxxx]

In a nutshell, why buy an expensive X-Fi with a feature no game uses and has issues to say the least when you can get an awesome prodigy 192 thats not only cheaper, but has decent drivers and specifically designed for audiophiles and recordists let alone "lowly" gamers

 

[G.T]

Cos it had a red glowy neon bit on it.

 

[Ketxxx]

lmao. yea. suckers for "bling". especially when the prodigy looks nice anyway

 

[exscalibur99]

okay I'm into more bang fr your buck... looks like prodigy has a good price and performance ratio then..

 

[bbriand]

I don't know much about the audiotrak series of cards but no matter what is said about Creative just launch most any game you want and there are usually hardware options for Creative cards.

Not slamming any other manufacturer but keep in mind that Creative is what the industry codes around (IMO).

Bill

 

[_33]

SBlive24 7.1 or audigy, same stuff, decent sound for average consumer, cheap, and also, much better than on board sound.

 

[wazzledoozle]

If you can find a cheap used Audigy 2, they softmod to Audigy 4. I personally dont see any reason to get an X-Fi right now, the audigy 2 series has EAX 1-4 which all games support.

However, that prodigy card looks awesome if you just need a card for music. Onboard SPIDF port is rare

 

[Tatty_Two]

I have always had creative cards and never had any problems but TBH just recently I have been dissapointed. I went from a soundbaster Live 5.1 (16 Bit) to Audigy 2 (24 Bit) and to be honest in either games or Movies I cannot hardly tell the difference....and yes I have the Audigy set to 96Khz. I even swapped them over the other day and again couldnt really tell the difference and I do have some reasonable surround speakers.

There are few games also with enough audio options in to fully utilise most top end sound cards, look at CSS or DoD....the best you can do is set it to "High" now I am sure that high aint 96Khz. I appreciate that for audiophiles its a different story but thats just my perspective.

Ironically i started having problems also with the Audigy yesterday, right enough at the 13 month old point (after warranty expired!) with huge distortion from the speakers....so bad I thought the speakers were blown, swapped cards again....fine.....went to "On board" fine, checked all connections and again fine so reckons something has blown on the card so I will just stick to the live card and be done with it.

 

[killatia]

Oh yea? Want to explain those mystery crackle & pop noises almost every X-Fi user experiences then? Thers so many things wrong with creative stuff these days its difficult to know where to start lol

i have a x-fi soubnd card and i have nevered experience any crackling and/or pop noises.

 

[WarEagleAU]

Bar none, Creative is really the only player in town. Though some manufacturers have used "daughter" cards most all leave the codecs on the board still. Ive never had problems with my creative. Turtle Beach series are nice also, dont really hurt frame rates either.