Raptor or X-fi? What would you buy?

I would also say get the raptor, sound isnt very noticle nor is it very vital to be amazinbg
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This has to be from someone who's never used a decent soundcard, surely?

You do notice sound quality when it's done properly.
 
Spanner in the works time

Thoughts on both of these Audio vs HardDisk

First of all, I got a Raptor. Its no faster thana good HD. In fact, the Seagate 80GB Sata and indeed the 80GB PATA Drives are every bit as quick in most applications... The Raptor may very well be able to seek quicker, but in real-life use, its not quicker.

Hell, My raptor is used as 8GB for C: and the rest of the drive is used as T: for storing my ISO Images... Says it all to me that I am wasting all that space on storage.

As for not being able to tell the difference in soundCards...

If this is truly the case, then I can say without fear of being wrong, that your Speakers are a pile of horse crap. There is no real difference between the SBLive and the lower end Audigy, in fact they are the same chip in a lot of them, but the higher end ones are a world apart, and saying there is none between onboard junk and a half decent card, is pure donkey jizz.

There isnt much difference between OnBoard and say a C-Media card, but then these cost what? £3.99 for a 5.1? - that says it all to me.
 
FatRakoon said:
Spanner in the works time

Thoughts on both of these Audio vs HardDisk

First of all, I got a Raptor. Its no faster thana good HD. In fact, the Seagate 80GB Sata and indeed the 80GB PATA Drives are every bit as quick in most applications... The Raptor may very well be able to seek quicker, but in real-life use, its not quicker.

I would suggest you try and configure you system properly.

The raptor is far quicker than any SATA1 or 2 drive period.

Matt
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split said:
I just don't like onboard sound period (not entirely true as my daughters ABIT Nforce 2 is pretty good)

I use the MSI Nforce3 with the same onboard chip as yours, and my old SB live card leaves the onboard sound on the MSI for dead.
There is a HUGE difference in sound quality IMO.

So its just not all CPU cycles, they do actually sound a lot better.
I expect you could get one for about £20 odd that would give you the cycles back, and better sound to boot.
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There are exceptions now as the new sound on the ATI Crossfire boards is VERY good.. Not quite Xi-Fi standard but very very good none the less ( certainly as good as a £30-40 sound card ).
 
Phil99 said:
This has to be from someone who's never used a decent soundcard, surely?

You do notice sound quality when it's done properly.
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Have to agree, going from the NF4 Abit sound to the Crossfire's HD sound was noticeable.

Regarding HDD's - Raptors are quicker, but I have to agree in a real world situation the difference isn't THAT much and you have to offset the sound and expense of the things. I'd go for something like a Samsung Spinpoint.
 
Rain Man said:
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.
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If you listen to a lot of music on your PC then you owe it to yourself to upgrade from on-board. I use an X-Fi XtremeMusic and Sennheiser headphones and good quality MP3's sound virtually as good as my CD/AMP that cost me a 1000 quid :eek:
 
Soundcard for sure!

Spend about £900 on your speakers and there is a HUGE difference between onboard and a audigy 2zs, there was on some £35 speakers too!

The raptor is nice, but no where near worth the money unless you have a mass of disposeable income.

And yes I use raptors :)
 
I can't believe some people are suggesting the hard drive over the sound card.

Bare in mind he's using onboard (and he likes to play BF2)... no brainer really.

Makes my sound engineering degree quiver when people are so silly ;) lol

@ the guy who reckons an MP3 can sound as good as a CD through a £1000 amp ....... :rolleyes: Admittedly the Sennheisers are good (assuming you got the HD600) but if you got good speakers on your hi fi then no MP3 should beat a CD quality piece of music, unless its punkrock!
 
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I've just gone from onboard to the £85 X-Fi - I'm totally amazed (blown away in fact) by the improved sound quality, and even through a pair of headphones the 3D effects are incredible.

Out of a Raptor or X-Fi, I'd personally choose X-Fi.

Hav
 
Hi there, i would go for the X-Fi and after seeing that link shall be myself. I did'nt realise onboard was that big of a performance hit. You can get a Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music for as little as £ 65.74 inc VAT if you shop around a bit.
 
well im gonna say the Xfi, its a cracking piece of kit, i went from onboard sound and when gaming theres a big difference in sound quality+ MP3 and CDs also sound amazing!...... go get the Xfi :cool:

Ninja
 
Mmmm...I'd say sound card too...much as I like raptors supposes speeds, I just couldnt justify it.
I've heard the onboard sound on the asrock dual939sata2 motherboard I'm getting is a bit better than nforce4, but I'm still thinking of an x-fi as I love music....will wait to see how my sound performs though...with a dual core, any cpu utilisation may suddenly become a lot less worrying ;)
Oh, and i'm getting a Hitachi 250GB deskstar, as after the Raptor, they're meant to be pretty much the fastest home hard drive available... for the price of 160GB of Raptor space, you could get a 250GB Hitachi SATAII AND a xfi fatal1ty...you can guess which one I favour, and along with a 2gb ram set, I fully intend to get an xfi in the next 2 months, unless the sound on the asrock really is as good as some reviews I've seen.
Besides, going from an old athlonXP job, the loading speed diffence is going to be huge going to my new system anyway, so I would not be as amazed from the raptor as I could be, as the new system I'm getting will be fairly amazing compared to the old one too.
 
EVH said:
I can't believe some people are suggesting the hard drive over the sound card.

Bare in mind he's using onboard (and he likes to play BF2)... no brainer really.

Makes my sound engineering degree quiver when people are so silly ;) lol

@ the guy who reckons an MP3 can sound as good as a CD through a £1000 amp ....... :rolleyes: Admittedly the Sennheisers are good (assuming you got the HD600) but if you got good speakers on your hi fi then no MP3 should beat a CD quality piece of music, unless its punkrock!
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Before i start all my Mp3s are Encoded at no less than 256Kbs the norm being 300kbs+

I Believe that mp3s are pretty much identical to cds in most music but not every peace.

The equipment i use is Sennheiser Hd580`s for headphones and for my pc rig
NAD C352 and a set of Quad 12L and i also have a set of Mission 772s.All using decent interconnects, speaker cables and atacama stands.

I agree that my rig isn’t amazing as in it isn’t Linn Audio etc but does for a pc.
 
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