Need help deciding what sound card to get

tmcolville

tmcolville

tmcolville

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Joined
5 Mar 2012
Posts
20
Hi,

My PC spec is as follows:
2600K @5.0GHz
Asus p8z68-v GEN3
crucial 8gb Ballistix Tactical Tracer
2x Asus gtx 550 ti Direct CU 1GB (1000MHz/2200MHz)
ocz agility 3 120GB (boot drive)
seagate 500GB SATAII


Currently using on-board sound with a set of Sennheiser headphone. I will also be getting M-Audio AV40 speakers. In my free time I mainly play games and listen to music. I play games like BF3 (not so much any more as I have moved and now have a terrible internet connection), Skyrim (the main game at the moment), Fifa11 and Batman. I only have a PCI-e slot for it to go into and budget isn't an issue.

I got advised by a friend to get the Asus Xonar Essence STX, reading reviews they said it had amazing music quality but sometimes fell down in games which worries me a little. I heard the creative sound blaster recon3d is a no go and the creative titanium HD has a tendency to hiss/pop at high volumes, also i heard the driver support for creative is no longer that good.

What is everyone's experience with these cards with the games I play, drivers, anything else and which one would you advise?
 
I would say either Asus Xonar Essence STX or Creative Titanium HD. The EAX emulation on the Asus is buggy, but I'm not sure that's that big a deal any more. I hadn't heard about any hissing/popping issues on the Titanium HD. Neither Asus nor Creative are great at driver support, though I've had no problems with my Asus. I've been very pleased with the STX. Great sound quality, especially with headphones.
 
Cheers Dewi, I was also thinking about the asus xonar d2x, music qulity will not be up to that of the essence and titanium HD (not far off though) but it has a better processor in it (over the essence) and has support for EAX 2.0 (essence doesn't and titanium has EAX 5.0).

Any opinions on what is best?
 
I upgraded from a Xonar DX (not the same as a D2X, I know) to an Essence STX and found it a worthwhile improvement. I think all the Asus cards have exactly the same software-based EAX emulation, so I don't think there's any difference between the D2X and the STX in that respect.
 
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