New Soundcard

Athlonix

Athlonix

Athlonix

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Joined
15 Nov 2007
Posts
20
Greetings all,

i've not posted much here, due to things going well :)

However i'm now dabbling with the idea of a new Soundcard, 5.1 or 7.1

The last time i bought a Soundcard was back when the likes of Quake 2 and Half life came out (yeah that long ago)

I've got the Realtek High Definition Audio card built into my motherboard (GA-790FXTA-UD5)

1.Realtek ALC889 codec
2.High Definition Audio
3.2/4/5.1/7.1-channel
4.Support for Dolby Home Theater
5.Support for S/PDIF In/Out
6.Support for CD In

I recently purchased a set of Roccat Kave headphones and have noticed a greatly increased sense of my surroundings in Bad Company 2, and the like.

however I do feel that possibly a new soundcard would further enhance my experience. The Realtek given me no problems, but I did notice in the Roccat Sound demo the sound wasn't as defined as i imagined, and of course looked straight at the soundcard.

I was using desktop speakers (as i don't have the ideal room for proper 5.1 setup) so the headset made sense and did improve things.

So the real question is what soundcard is best suited for this? I don't want to pay for a £500 soundcard when as a gamer a £70 one would be more than sufficient. So i'm all ears to suggestions, I don't have a budget, but likewise as with all of us the less we pay the happier we are :)

Thanks guys.

Luke.
 
Any soundcard would provide you with a better experience than onboard sound and they will all drive the 5.1 headphones you have very well.

The Xonar DG for £20 is a PCI card that is very good apparently. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SC-012-AS

The Xonar DX for £50 is a PCI-E card and is the one I bought. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SC-002-AS&groupid=701&catid=11&subcat=

Neither are audiophile cards but ideally suit gamers needs.

Your sound will be richer, deeper and more vibrant and positional sound should be more distinct, at least it was for me.

I wouldn't go back to onboard for gaming after using my DX, Dolby Headphone and Goldring NS1000s.
 
So what is the deal with the likes of creative doing the x-fi series. and the fatality card? The fatality headset is lovely except for the 2.0 sound. So I was tempted by a card of the same name.

I used to use creative, really the question is creative or xonor and reasons to why. I need a pci-e card btw
 
I was put off the Creative by their dodgy drivers but I don't think there's much wrong with them as far as sound quality goes.

From what I gather reading on here it seems the Creatives are better for game oriented use while the Asus Xonar offer a more balanced use between gaming, movies and music. The Creatives tend to be more expensive too.

I'm not sure about the cheap end PCI-E creative cards but I was looking at the £100 ish Fatality one for a while which seemed to get good reviews but the addition of the special RAM that they have seems a bit wasted considering the way games utilise soundcards these days.

As I said the Xonar DX is a PCI-E card and tempted me enough to purchase. I could have purchased the D2X for a few quid more but felt that I didn't really need the additional audio features. I will say that coming from a Creative to an Asus I can feel the difference in audio quality and love the lack of pops and crackles compared with my old Creative Audigy.

I'm no expert though. Some of the guys on here spend a fortune on audio stuff for their computers and may be able to provide a better comparison for you.
 
Thanks for the solid input so far.
Of course drivers, I forgot about Creative and there bloatware drivers, good point Tealc.
i'll look into Asus abit more. Of course any suggestions from anyone else are welcome :)
 
Hello OP,

The Xonar DX is an excellent unit and worth every penny if upgrading the overall experience of your system is on the agenda. The D2X is also an excellent product offering a little extra in the multimedia and gaming department.

The DG is the lower cost of the 3 lines mentioned however it sound fantastic with speakers when compared to the likes of onboard or the creative equivalent but with headphones it shines. For £20 its an absolute steal!
 
Well I went for the xonar ds found it in my local pcworld for 30£ so couldn't sniff at that. So far the audio experience has been phenomenal it is such a change from the onboard. And has made bad company 2 sound even more real.


Many thanks to those who gave there advise.

Luke.
 
I went for the DX also some years ago. The DAC used for the stereo channels (the one's you'll be using for normal headphones) is actually rather good (CS4398). Using it with Senn HD595s. Bliss!

The DX is cheaper as the DACs for the stereo channels are cheaper, with less good SNR etc. If like me you only want analogue 2 channel, I recommend the DX.

Edit: In fact, with those headphones you won't notice either way.
 
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