Which sound card to go for?

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2 Aug 2006
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22
Hello,

My mobo is an Asrock 939 dual sata 2 w/ Realtek AC97 Audio and i use 2.1 speakers. I was thinking of getting a sound card to help performance in games and improve the overall sound compared to my onboard sound. Should i go for:

A) Some cheap 16bit card for about £6
B) Soundblaster Audigy 4 for about £30-40
C) Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Series Extreme Music for about £50-60
D) Something else (post what it is)

Since this is the first time i'm buying a sound card, I don't know what to do.

Thank you
 
ahmed5: let us know what card you choose & how well it performs. I have the same mobo & am considering buying a seperate card too.
Cheers :D
 
I have the same motherboard. I've used three things for sound:

i) Onboard. The massive heatsink on my old 9800 Pro effectively limited me to one PCI card on this board and I used it for my TV capture card.
ii) Audigy 2. I didn't use the TV capture card much, so I swapped, and then I got a PCI-E 7900GT anyway.
iii) X-Fi, my latest toy.

Onboard to the Audigy 2 was a huge step up, for everything. Games, music, film, everything.

Audigy 2 to the X-Fi was a smaller step up, but still significant with one exception - the improvement when gaming with headphones is huge.
 
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