Sound card questions

[wihadmin]

In my system, I have an old SB Audigy. Now I see that there are Audigy2, Audigy4, Audigy X-Fi, etc.... With the exclusion of the X-Fi, are the Audigy2 and Audigy4 all that much better than the Audigy? I can't help but feel that the whole sound card market is nothing but clever marketing and hype. I would like to upgrade my sound card to get better performance from the games, but I wouldn't want to upgrade to a Audigy2/4 when they're just basically the same Audigy that's been rebadged and re-marketed.

Do you guys have any insights? Are there websites that review/compare sound cards? I would appreciate any info you guys have on this subject!

Thanks!

[GorroXXII]

I have an Audigy 2 card! and currently use the X-Fi Fatal1ty card... I am all about the sound. I noticed a huge difference! Nice speakers help as well! I love my X-fi card! As for websites, I think I have some at home that will help you!

[Kev Kanos]

I went from a sound blaster live to a XF-I fatality last month. I dont know about the audigys but with the Xram feature on the fatality edition I havent CTD on BF2 since. It also cuts map loading times in half as well as making everything sound so much better. My 2.1 speakers sound like I am wearing my headphones. Everything sounds so much better. If your going to upgrade I would get the XF-I fatality beacuse of the xram. I know alot of people say its a joke but I think its worth it if it stops the CTDs.

Also, Bf2 is the only game out right now with support for xram so I havent seen any proformance difference in anything else. My 3dmark scores are up about 50 points in 3dmark03, which isnt even worth commenting on so it really is just for BF2. But thats all we really play anyway.:thumbsup:

I know you asked about the audigys but I skiped those so if you are set on an audigy then forget all this.

[sir_digalot]

the x-fi is a great card... but the x-fi is also a really expensive

i got my audigy 4 for $30 as a system pull, it does not have all the bells and whistles like the drive and remote, but it has the most important thing imo a configurable spdif between 96 and 44.100 including a passthrough for dolby and DTS

it is also a 24/96 card.... you are right they are just rebadged and modified drivers, but for $30??? hell i cannot beat that, and it works a treat moresoe then my old sbLive ( yes the origional) and is also much better then the onboard AC'97 audio...

going digital though my home theatre hi-fi amp, sound sexy....

as far as i am concerned any card that has native 24/96 and can output the untouched SPDIF is more important then anything else... i di not care for any other effects and such... if i wanted a digital audio card i would go for something other then SB

EDIT: i should calrify i mean by digital audio something for professional/semi professional recording NOT gaming as the professional cards are not designed for that

[GorroXXII]

Here is the card I have boxed up!

http://www.techspot.com/reviews/hardware/audigy2/

[sir_digalot]

it is a very cpable card and i think you will see a difference between that and the origional audigy....
can you do hardware accel in BF2 with that one?? i can now with mine.... which makes a difference... not much..

if you can get any one the 24/96 cards cheap (or for free) get them

[antigen]

I got the x-fi extreme music.. it's the cheap one at around US$120. Sure, it doesn't have the fancy i/o interface or RAM, but who cares. Same quality sound for much cheaper.

I'm liking it so far, except the drivers occasionally cause problems... nothing too big mind you: a delay when closing a window or an error message at shutdown.

Creative will figure it out I'm sure. Hopefully... but everything sounds pretty damn good. I like the idea of having preset modes like gaming/entertainment/audio creation, and the mp3 crystalizer really brings out the sound in your music files.

[sir_digalot]

one thing about the audigy 2 i like is the 1394... very useful if you do not have onboard