Sound Card Help

danielpage1989 · 26 Mar 2018 at 21:47

Evening people, i was just after some advice and help on picking a soundcard. The problem i'am having is that i'm not too sure if my motherboard can take one and if it can whats the best one under £100? I want to get a sound card so i can have surround sound and just for it to sound better than on board sound.

My motherboard is : ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. Model Z170-P (LGA1151)
My Gfx card is: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (just incase you need to know)

i have spare slots beneath it! i just dont know if they will accept a soundcard.

Thanks for you're help in advance!

lee32uk · 26 Mar 2018 at 22:37

Hi daniel welcome to the forum

I don't think sound cards are usually worth it, but if you want one then this Asus gets a good review (see below)

https://www.kitguru.net/components/...soar-pciexpress-7-1-gaming-sound-card-review/

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Asus Strix SOAR 7.1 PCI-E Sound Card (90YB00J0-M1UA00)= £69.95

Total: £78.65 (includes shipping: £8.70)

The slot above the graphics card is a pcie x 1 so the sound card would fit in that. There is also a full length x16 slot as well if you wanted to put it in there instead.

lee32uk · 26 Mar 2018 at 22:40

Just noticed that it needs a 6 pin pcie from the psu which is a bit odd. If you don't have a spare connector then you can use a molex > pcie adapter.

Do you know what power supply you have ?

C-Roy · 27 Mar 2018 at 07:12

I still use my Asus Xonar DX2 it does the job perfectly. You could probably pick one up cheaply now days. However it requires power from the PSU as lee mentions above.

danielpage1989 · 27 Mar 2018 at 09:33

Morning thanks for you’re replies! My PSU is a Corsair CS650M and there is one free connection and here is a picture!

Pocah · 27 Mar 2018 at 12:18

What are you using for speakers? Most monitors don't even use the sound card. Headphones are better in just plain old stereo. It's only really if you are using surround speakers that you will benefit from a surround card.

lee32uk · 27 Mar 2018 at 13:10

danielpage1989 said:
Morning thanks for you’re replies! My PSU is a Corsair CS650M and there is one free connection and here is a picture!

Yeah that psu has 4 x 6+2 pcie connectors so you will be fine.

EsaT · 27 Mar 2018 at 13:40

danielpage1989 said:
I want to get a sound card so i can have surround sound and just for it to sound better than on board sound.

What are you using for listening? Speakers or headphones?
For speakers separate sound cards don't have really anything over well done integrated which doesn't suffer from interference.

EsaT · 27 Mar 2018 at 14:06

lee32uk said:
I don't think sound cards are usually worth it, but if you want one then this Asus gets a good review (see below)

https://www.kitguru.net/components/...soar-pciexpress-7-1-gaming-sound-card-review/

The slot above the graphics card is a pcie x 1 so the sound card would fit in that. There is also a full length x16 slot as well if you wanted to put it in there instead.

Unfortunately Asus spent more time on marketing hype and naming than actual product.
Strix Soar and Strix Raid Pro use same card, which has totally lame 100ohm output impedance suffered by also few earlier Asus sound cards.
http://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en/report/amp/asus-strix-raid-pro-low.php#rw3

With lower ohm headphones that will decrease damping factor and also causes frequency response changes with frequency dependant impedance headphones.
http://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en/report/amp/asus-strix-raid-pro-low.php#rw16

Sound Blaster Z's bare 20 ohms looks stellar in comparison...

And uppermost x1 slot would be bad place for sound card for two reasons:
It's very close to graphics card making it more exposed to possible interference.
And graphics cards tend to run hot heating it from below, while above it we have heat from CPU.

Second x1 slot is also close to graphics card and wouldn't be really usable with many non-reference cooler cards.
But that second "x16" slot is electrically only x4 slot wired to chipset so it can be used without robbing PCI-e lanes from graphic card's main x16 slot.

danielpage1989 · 28 Mar 2018 at 09:23

thanks for the information! i basically just want surround sound/sound bar setup in my gaming room for when i'm not using my headphones. i just thought to get the best out of them both, a soundcard would make them sound a lot better! sorry if my bone questions and answers are annoying haha

fowler002 · 28 Mar 2018 at 13:40

Op I hope you dont mind if I hijack this a little, I’m going to be connecting my pc to a 49inch 4K tv(connected to a Samsung ms650 sound bar so will be using hdmi. Will the sound be from the graphics card(evga 1080ti ftw3) or the motherboard? If it’s from the graphics card how does it compare to motherboard onboard sound and discreet sound cards?

Pocah · 29 Mar 2018 at 08:40

fowler002 said:
Op I hope you dont mind if I hijack this a little, I’m going to be connecting my pc to a 49inch 4K tv(connected to a Samsung ms650 sound bar so will be using hdmi. Will the sound be from the graphics card(evga 1080ti ftw3) or the motherboard? If it’s from the graphics card how does it compare to motherboard onboard sound and discreet sound cards?

It will come from your graphics card. It's generally better to run a separate cable to drive the TV Audio using your sound card. You usually get a lot more control that way and of course you can buy a better sound card for improved quality.