is it worth buying a sound card.

mickeyfinagin

mickeyfinagin

mickeyfinagin

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14 Jan 2011
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Aylesbury
Hi one and all.
Still looking at all my options before my final build spec in April.
I have a few questions so sorry about the long thread.

Mainly play COD,bf2 FPS. just been reading on a Black ops forum that people think that if you have a sound card , it can stop some of the stuttering in game play??? don't know if this is true so please don't laugh too much.

Anyway it got me thinking again about my new spec. I mainly use headphones,i would like to be able to talk online whilst playing, at the moment im using a


Creative Fatal1ty HS-800 Gaming Headset , but have also used a Plantronics GameCom 367 Gaming Headset.

1) what i have found with both of these units is that the mike is nowhere near my mouth and when i talk it does not pick my voice up very well. Tried all the settings but it only works when I put the mic right near my mouth, should the mike be able to pick my voice up from a distance? Mike about60mm away from my lips, not got a massive head honest.

2) the motherboard Im looking to get is something like the MSI P67A-GD65 Intel P67.

If i got this board would it do 5.1 sound? both on a headset and logitech 5.1 speakers i already have?

3) does a sound card like a Asus Xonar DG 5.1 PCI Sound Card £25.99 with built in Headphone Amp or Asus Xonar DS 7.1 PCI Sound Card £39.98 make much difference to the game play in games like BO's

4) is it worth up grading to a head set like a Roccat Kave 5.1 Surround Sound Headset £69.98

I dont want to spend much more money than the prices of those units, just want to know if its all worth it, and if you have any ideas on components to use.

thanks once again for your advice.
budget is forever growing
 
I have the 367 headset and I have to use the mic boost in the audio control panel on both the HD audio on my laptop and the X-Fi in my PC. Good headset though :)

While dedicated cards are generally better I doubt you'd find much of a difference. Another thing worth asking is whether you are using generic Windows audio drivers or the Realtek ones? It's always worth installing the proper drivers :)
 
Have you enabled microphone boost? To do it, right click on the volume control in the system tray, go to recording devices and open the properties of the microphone. Then go to the levels tab and turn up the microphone boost. I have mine on +36dB and it works nicely :D
 
On board audio is getting just as good as a sound cards these days so there is no point in buying one.

The only time i would buy a sound card if i wanted to create music as on board sound cards struggle with loads virtual instruments.

Plus to hear decent quality audio you need decent quality speakers and the ones you buy from PC world aren't that good compared to dedicated reference monitors.

I will be buying a sound card for my music creation but i listen to music on my PC with these speakers :)

And yes they are good and are good for home theatre.

http://www.mackie.com/products/hrmk2series/
 
Ok, is seems no to the sound card. Saves me a chunck of money.

Any suggestions on headphones with a good mike then, £80 max budget.

will the MSI play 5.1sound.
Is 5.1 sound in headphones any good,how does it work,is it as good as normal logitech 5.1 speakers.
thanks
 
iirc soundcards give you maybe 1 or 2 fps boost..

but they generaly give you slightly better sound quality..
although unles your a sound engineer/music producer you probably wont notice/need the diference
 
I find the difference between onboard and souncard quite pronounced and I'm no audiophile.

I feel that the difference in sound quality and positional awareness a dedicated souncard brings is worth a small investment.
 
I swear by Creative.
I have 'X-fi Music' sound card, 'Creative gigaworks' speakers and 'creative fatal1ty' head set.
As for sound card they are quite expensive and I would say there's only a small improvement in sound but I do love mine..
 
I ran onboard sound for a while, wasnt too bad, but i added in a xonar dx pcie card, coupled with a pair of goldring ns1000 headphones, the difference in sound quality is quite perceptible compared to onboard.
 
Get a good pair of stereo headphones and a sound card to emulate 5.1/7.1. It sounds so much better then a 5.1 headset.
 
i used to have a speedlink medusa headset and my x-fi extreme gamer was much better than the onboard with it.

in games like battlefield 2142 it was a lot easier to tell which directions shots and noises were coming from.
 
thanks for feedback
mixed bunch or replies, its one to think about, may go headset first then soundcard.
My whole build is mainly for games, so any extra help i get in playing them ( 40 year old git now) will give me a a bit extra.
I have only been using headphones for around 3 months, before i was using a 5.1 speaker set up. I prefer the headphone, and it keeps the wife happy not listerning to gun fire all the time.
 
Onboard sounds like hiss with anything better than bargain bucket phones.

Get a xonar dx for £40 second hand and hear the difference.
 
which xonar dx do you recommend , I dont want to blow huge amounts. My build has so far gone up from £800 to about £1100 so far just from feed back from here.

Head phones and sound card is on top of that.
 
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