anyone recommend a good sound card?

[roguekiller23231]

a few weeks ago i began to experience problems with my on board sound, later discovered (after a lot of messages to the customer support for my mobo) that a capacitor that i had discovered at the bottom of my case was the cause of all my issues, i must have knocked it off during one of my through cleans of the case.

but anyway, i'm in the market for a new sound card and i'm lost with all the choices.

it will be used with 5.1 speakers, PCI-E connection is proffered because the only PCI slot i have is covered up by my graphics card, and finally, has to be under ?45.

so anyone got any recommendations?

[CUBBYJR2005]

The best ones are from creative the company.

[Pupik]

Nothing good comes to my mind with PCI-E in that price range (I'd stay away from Creative, as the result of their drivers). If you can somehow free a PCI slot, ASUS Xonar DS is a good option for that price range.

[CUBBYJR2005]

Nothing good comes to my mind with PCI-E in that price range (I'd stay away from Creative, as the result of their drivers). If you can somehow free a PCI slot, ASUS Xonar DS is a good option for that price range.

sorry disagree and all drivers have bugs not just creative.

[articuno1au]

Creative is particularly noted for it's driver bugs in this generation of sound cards however.

[Alwaysonacoffebreak]

a few weeks ago i began to experience problems with my on board sound, later discovered (after a lot of messages to the customer support for my mobo) that a capacitor that i had discovered at the bottom of my case was the cause of all my issues, i must have knocked it off during one of my through cleans of the case.

but anyway, i'm in the market for a new sound card and i'm lost with all the choices.

it will be used with 5.1 speakers, PCI-E connection is proffered because the only PCI slot i have is covered up by my graphics card, and finally, has to be under ?45.

so anyone got any recommendations?

Your graphics card is in PCI and You want an PCI-E soundcard? Now that doesn't make sense. Rather save some money, buy a decent PCI-E gfx card and the PCI soundcards are like 10-15 euros for the cheaper ones.

[roguekiller23231]

Your graphics card is in PCI and You want an PCI-E soundcard? Now that doesn't make sense. Rather save some money, buy a decent PCI-E gfx card and the PCI soundcards are like 10-15 euros for the cheaper ones.

:rolleyes:

pci is 'covered up'

it's an xfx 6970, if thats not decent, reccomend a better one? :laugh:

it's a double slot card, the PCI-Ex16 slot is taken up by the card, the one inder it is also taken up by it's cooler, and thats the PCI slot.

[neoraptor]

auzentech ?

[LaP]

The best ones are from creative the company.

I would not touch Creative SC with a 10 meters long stick.

I still have my Creative X-Fi Platinum as a paper weight. The card is not broken. It never actually worked properly. Could not return it to the store cause since Creative blamed everyone at first and did not acknowledge the problem i thought some drivers update or MB change would resolve the situation and when i finally understood that the problem was the card and creative it was too late.

Cretive always blamed everyone for the crackle/pop debacle. Yet i try this SC in every new computer i get and it's still not working properly. Still waiting for a recall and a working card ... you know this is what good companies do when they ship products that are not working. But well it's Creative ...

I would buy a SC by Auzentech or Asus.

I curently own a Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1 (same X-Fi chipset as the Platinum by Creative) and it works perfectly. Good sound card but i think it's disc now.

[PGHammer]

I would not touch Creative SC with a 10 meters long stick.

I still have my Creative X-Fi Platinum as a paper weight. The card is not broken. It never actually worked properly. Could not return it to the store cause since Creative blamed everyone at first and did not acknowledge the problem i thought some drivers update or MB change would resolve the situation and when i finally understood that the problem was the card and creative it was too late.

Cretive always blamed everyone for the crackle/pop debacle. Yet i try this SC in every new computer i get and it's still not working properly. Still waiting for a recall and a working card ... you know this is what good companies do when they ship products that are not working. But well it's Creative ...

I would buy a SC by Auzentech or Asus.

I curently own a Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1 (same X-Fi chipset as the Platinum by Creative) and it works perfectly. Good sound card but i think it's disc now.

And you are basically saying that it's the *drivers* - not the hardware.

Creative manufactures the hardware, and supplies it to third parties as well (including ASUS) - the only difference is the drivers.

I have the PCI (low-profile) version of the X-Fi XtremeGamer, and have had exactly zero issues with driver support from Creative - I've had it, in fact, since 2005.

What's different between me and all the folks that have had issues?

I've asked that very question of folks that say that they have had issues, and haven't gotten a clear answer yet.

It's been seven years - and the clock still ticks.

[Miuku.]

I still have an Audigy 1, Audigy 2 and an X-Fi and not a single one of them have caused me any issues in the past, Audigy 1 shipping drivers were problematic with some games but those were pretty swiftly fixed.

In reality, the PC hardware landscape is so insane that almost every manufacturer has or has had issues at some point, bigger or smaller.

[PGHammer]

I still have an Audigy 1, Audigy 2 and an X-Fi and not a single one of them have caused me any issues in the past, Audigy 1 shipping drivers were problematic with some games but those were pretty swiftly fixed.

In reality, the PC hardware landscape is so insane that almost every manufacturer has or has had issues at some point, bigger or smaller.

True story - I have an HDTV Wonder (old TV tuner card from the XP days). It was EOL'd a few years back, but it's still supported - even the WDP supports it.

Why it's still in use - it's an ATSC OTA TV tuner card that works with most software for the purpose (regardless of OS), especially Windows Media Center.

The only issue it has is that it is very address-picky and doesn't share I/O addresses nicely (it's actually pickier than Creative's sound cards - which are notorious blame-getters),

I have the HDTV Wonder *and* the X-Fi I mentioned before in the same computer.

The issue on getting them to work together is slot ordering (making sure that neither has a conflict with another device in the address or I/O range it uses). While it's hard with ATX motherboards (the standard when both cards were manufactured), it's much harder with mATX, let alone ITX (fewer slots available, and more are shared). PCIe x1 has it no easier.

It's also why I'm going back to ATX for my next motherboard - to ease the address deconfliction issue (not merely with PCI, but with PCIe x1 as well) going forward.

[Twisp]

Save up more cash and get one from Asus or Auzentech.

[LaP]

And you are basically saying that it's the *drivers* - not the hardware.

Creative manufactures the hardware, and supplies it to third parties as well (including ASUS) - the only difference is the drivers.

I have the PCI (low-profile) version of the X-Fi XtremeGamer, and have had exactly zero issues with driver support from Creative - I've had it, in fact, since 2005.

What's different between me and all the folks that have had issues?

I've asked that very question of folks that say that they have had issues, and haven't gotten a clear answer yet.

It's been seven years - and the clock still ticks.

Don't think it's the drivers cause Auzentech is using a sligthly modified version of Creative ones (unless Auzentech did something to prevent the crackle/pop issue but i doubt it). Not the chipset either cause my Auzentech card is using the same chipset.

Dunno. Defintely not the MB chipset as i experienced this on 2 different MBs (DFI with nVidia chipset and ASUS with intel chipset). Not the OS either.

Honestly it's hard to tell cause Creative itself doesn't know.

On Windows 7 with my new MB using the lastest drivers it's not as worse as it was on windows xp and my old MB but i still get some crackle/pop here and there while listening to music or movies.

Not the first problem i have with a piece of HW i buy so it's okay but the support offered by Creative was one of the worst i ever experienced honestly. If you don't know what the problem is then don't say it's the MB chipset and say that maybe the card is the problem and people should return it asap.

[ranmas]

Creative or other wise there is not a lot of companies too chose between in the sound card arena for the pc.

My selection is baised upon what the computer is going to be used for. If you are going to game on it then there is really onl y one choice, and that is creative. Windows 7 and open al may be changing this fact of life creative still has the advantage of being the only card to support all of eax's features. Even if that is only because it is their tech. A lot of games are still out there that only work well with eax. So creative gets the win there.

However if your looking at music content creation or some other usage then creative is not the best rout to go. Several people have listed very good companies for sound cards in this thread already, and you would just need too putin a bitof research as too what one would be the best for you.

However the fact that you need it too be an express card also points to creative, as they are the only ones that I can think of with a good express card. Others were talking about getting them out too market, but I do not know if they have done so yet. As I have not needed a new card for a while. In case your wondering I have the express version of the xf-i titanium.

Typing on a tablet is not always fun or easy. Sent from a asus tranformer.

[ElliottLan]

xonar dg with unified drivers - http://brainbit.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/asus-xonar-unified-drivers/ - was the best cheap solution for me. If I had money I would get a high end audigy.