No idea about gaming sound cards, help?

Jacksonn

Jacksonn

Jacksonn

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So I have been trawling through these forums and various other review sites and YouTube. And I can't seem to find a a good conclusion about what sound card to get.

I play a lot of fps games and listen to a lot of music, so from what I can read recon3d fatality champion is not a good choice. Haven't seen many reviews on the sound blaster Z so I'm unsure on that because people say the software is pants?

I did think highly about the Asus ROG Xonar Phoebus but a few sites say its over priced and really not a good choice?

There is no price limit I just want a good card that sounds good in all areas.. But mainly fps gaming.

Suggestions..
 
A sound card is only as good as the speakers or headset your using however assuming your using onboard and a half decent headset even something like the asus xonar dgx will be a big improvement for very little outlay.

Im not against spending lots on cards but really need to know what your planning on using it for, for example i was limited in my options as i wanted front header connections and rear 5.1 options you may or may not need that.

IMO grab a cheap card like a dgx its only 20 quid it gives you all the options you might or might not need and is a massive improvement over onboard sound. If you feel you need more than that afterwards then upgrade but tbh i doubt you will need more than that. The way i see it is those people that need a 50 quid plus card would know they needed to give details about speaker or headset setups and there relevance to the questions your asking, as you havnt id suggest even a basic card will be enough for your needs
 
Thanks for some of the advice stuie, have some hd555 cans but looking at getting some 7.1's of some variety. I am only using a on board sound card at the moment so finding positioning on 1.6/go/bf3 to be a bit off.
 
A sound card helps free up CPU resources.
I was running an i3 2120 (which was a great CPU) however, when I ran the Heaven 3.0 benchmark the sound slowed down and didn't sound quite right. (I didn't have any issues in games though)
I now have an i7 2700k and the sound runs perfectly in Heaven 3.0

Advantages other than improved sound quality are that they free up CPU resources and they can help resolve driver issues with onboard sound (if you are experiencing them)

I have always found onboard sound to be good enough for my requirements.
 
Most current sound cards work in openal sound now eax hardware processing is just about dead so they make very little difference to cpu usage now especially considering the current horsepower of modern cpus if you saw 1 fps difference id be suprised. What you experienced was the cpu prioritising the benchmark the change was the upgrade to the 2700k not a sound card

On the hd555 cans you would really benefit from a sound card i wouldnt worry about getting 7.1 the cans youve got are more than enough. Get a decent card with a headphone amp I got this one

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SC-015-AS&groupid=701&catid=11&subcat=

Even just a 20 quid card like that will make the world of difference
 
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Jacksonn said:
Yeah I have a i7 2600K @ 4.60GHz, but freeing that would still be beneficial I would assume?
Click to expand...

It would move sound processing from your CPU. I suspect that the improvement would be so tiny with an i7 that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference other than maybe in benchmarks.

The major reason would be better sound and/or driver issues. (if you had any)
 
Ah great stuie, means I can use that money towards a different speaker set up, using a Sony system from 5+ years ago just running through aux. No surround sound there.
 
the good part of that card is you can use front audio header for the cans and still leave the rear ports for speakers something that a lot of additional cards dont have or support
 
yep unplug the cans and swap on the fly in software or vise versa and the headphone amp still works on the front headers, the only other setting is to turn off the headset virtual setup where you set the ohm rating and performance of the headset its a 3 click swap over
 
Jacksonn said:
So I have been trawling through these forums and various other review sites and YouTube. And I can't seem to find a a good conclusion about what sound card to get.

I play a lot of fps games and listen to a lot of music, so from what I can read recon3d fatality champion is not a good choice. Haven't seen many reviews on the sound blaster Z so I'm unsure on that because people say the software is pants?

I did think highly about the Asus ROG Xonar Phoebus but a few sites say its over priced and really not a good choice?

There is no price limit I just want a good card that sounds good in all areas.. But mainly fps gaming.

Suggestions..
Click to expand...

What speakers or headphones do you have?
 
Melmac all in the thread fella, my fault I should have out all the information in the initial post. But it's all in here now.
 
SkodaMart said:
A sound card helps free up CPU resources.
I was running an i3 2120 (which was a great CPU) however, when I ran the Heaven 3.0 benchmark the sound slowed down and didn't sound quite right. (I didn't have any issues in games though)
I now have an i7 2700k and the sound runs perfectly in Heaven 3.0

Advantages other than improved sound quality are that they free up CPU resources and they can help resolve driver issues with onboard sound (if you are experiencing them)

I have always found onboard sound to be good enough for my requirements.
Click to expand...

Not so much anymore, even with a sound card almost everything is done in software.

The only sound card that does the work of the CPU is the x-fi cards which a real x-fi chip and only when in a game which supports EAX/openAL is used which is pretty rare nowadays.
 
MaxP779 said:
Not so much anymore, even with a sound card almost everything is done in software.

The only sound card that does the work of the CPU is the x-fi cards which a real x-fi chip and only when in a game which supports EAX/openAL is used which is pretty rare nowadays.
Click to expand...

So the only advantage is improved sound quality? (and extra jacks?)
 
melmac said:
No, to be honest, I haven't.
Click to expand...

Erm yeah cool

MaxP779 said:
Not so much anymore, even with a sound card almost everything is done in software.

The only sound card that does the work of the CPU is the x-fi cards which a real x-fi chip and only when in a game which supports EAX/openAL is used which is pretty rare nowadays.
Click to expand...

SkodaMart said:
So the only advantage is improved sound quality? (and extra jacks?)
Click to expand...

As covered in my post #6 above
 
Jacksonn said:
Melmac all in the thread fella, my fault I should have out all the information in the initial post. But it's all in here now.
Click to expand...

Yeah, just read the whole thread, they just started talking about CPU useage and stuff so didn't bother reading any further and said I would ask instead.

I went through the same thing a couple of months ago wondering what sound card to get and decided to get the Asus DG. Big difference over the onboard sound especially when using headphones. It really helps with positioning in games.

But, a couple of weeks after that I purchased the Creative Z, and it's way better then the DG. The creative Z has a dedicated headphone port on the back of the card, so you can plug headphones and speakers in at the same time and switch between them with one click in the creative software.

Saying all that, I would ask you a question, do you think you would use speakers or headphone more? I mean if you had a 5.1 speaker setup would you use it more than the headphones?

If the answer is yes you would use speakers more, then you should save your money and get the speakers first.
 
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