Raptor or X-fi? What would you buy?

Rain Man · 15 Mar 2006 at 15:50

Basicly ive got about £80 for an upgrade. My system is pretty damn awesome and im always the first to load on BF2 but im still using onboard sound and an ATA 160GB drive lol.

so which bit shall i upgrade? Either buy a 74/36.7gb Raptor (from mm) or a X-fi Extreme Music sound card

what would you buy?

cheers

Rain Man · 15 Mar 2006 at 16:06

anyone? looking to buy soon. not tryin to hasstle you

Rain Man · 15 Mar 2006 at 16:13

thats a fair point but ive got a nice set of speakers and i do listen to music A LOT so im still a bit sceptical. Ive heard people say the upgrade from an audigy 2 zs to X-FI is amazing nevermind from onboard.

Rain Man · 15 Mar 2006 at 16:21

It seems to be 2-1 for the raptor but the only raptor i can really afford right now is the 36.7gb one. I may go for the X-FI and get the raptor next month. Keep the opinions coming though its all welcome

cheers

Rain Man · 15 Mar 2006 at 16:25

well im using the 850 sound chipset *eek* atm and my middle speaker doesnt work because it isnt configured propperly or something. ive seen an x-fi extreme music for about £80 which isnt bad

like i said before im 99% of the time first on the server anyway cos of my 3.0ghz opty and 2gb ram

Rain Man · 15 Mar 2006 at 16:31

split said:
Looks to me like you have a DFI motherboard tho.
Poster has EPOX with Realtek ALC850 codec (looking at sig), so you cant really compare the two.
3D audio looks like a real cycle hog, and you think what you paid for those cycles.
Can also move it along to next PC etc as sound cards don't really date.

Would also deopend on what audio you actually use in games.

i use onbard ALC850 set to 5.1 but like i said the middle speaker doesnt like to work

Rain Man · 15 Mar 2006 at 16:36

ben_j_davis said:
Raptors are extremely expensive, when i bought a new sound card and speakers it made no end of difference. Buy an Xfi and speakers and you'll still have enough left to buy a Samsung SpinPoint or a Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 they are pretty fast and have a much larger storage capacity.

thats done it im getting an x-fi

. think ill get a 74gb raptor in a couple of months or something but i just cant justify buying one now to boot into windows quicker and to make bf2 load quicker when im first on any server anyway

thanks for the help guys

Rain Man · 15 Mar 2006 at 16:45

ben_j_davis said:
Only just noticed you were after the old Raptors, so you might not be able to buy a HD after you've got the sound card and speakers, still most Non Raptor HD's are still very cheap.

But you have made the right decision at least you can appreciate your purchase when not playing games as well.

already got an okish 5.1 speakers set, can go very load and after some reading of the sound threads people are sayin theres a MASSIVE difference between an X-FI and an audigy 2 zs. coming from people who have made this upgrade