Sound card recommendation for casual gamer!

[titaniumx3]

I currently have a Creative SBLive! 1024 sound card (7yrs old ) and while its still working perfectly fine, I get the feeling I might be losing some FPS on the latest games (though I have no way of testing this theory!). That said, I love the simplicty of the card and the unintrusive driver software. My main concern is gaming and clean/balanced sound quality for headphones (I don't need any special sound 'enhancing' features).

Would I be better off with the cheaper Audigy 4 OEM or the pricey X-Fi Extreme Music? Would I be losing out in terms of game performance with the Audigy 4?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[TooNice]

Performance, not really. Features, yes.

 

[titaniumx3]

Do you consider these features essential for gaming?

(Currently my old soundblaster is adequate for the games I play)

 

[Edinho]

Dont waste your money imo. If you want to spend that money buy a good mouse or something.

 

[puppy]

Well I upgraded from the Audigy (original series) to the X-FI music and it's really made a difference - not least of which is the quality of MP3 playback. The new card also supports EAX5.0 which is bound to start seeing support in games soon - a decent soundcard will also take load off your processor so you can't go wrong IMHO. If the X-FI is a bit expensive for you, why not u/g to an Audigy2? Cheap as chips now

 

[TooNice]

To me, the upgrade is worth it. The Live! just doesn't cut it nowadays. Yes, it'll play sound, but it's much of a step up to onboard.

Between the Audigy 2/4 (pretty much the same thing), and the X-Fi, it depends what sound is worth to you. That's pretty subjective.