Which sound card...

lumo · October 17th, 2009, 05:33 PM

hi

i always had a creative card till now, and i was fine with all but the Live! (busted two cards and sound was crap) now i am using an x-fi music (golden jacks)

as i sell my computer as whole i will loose the card.

therefore i was looking for new stuff

ASUS Xonar D2/PM, PCI (90-YAA021-1UAN00+)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic bulk, PCI (30SB046000000)

not sure which to get, creative is about 65 euro here.
asus xonar is about 90 euro not sure about quality.

any suggestions (fanboys are not wellcome

-> dont just flame creative - facts...)

Sazabizc · October 17th, 2009, 09:36 PM

The Asus Xonar looks like a very nice sound card. I was thinking about trying one back when I had the xfi SCP on my old computer. The only thing is Im not sure if it supports EAX I think it was Eax 2 not sure.

Here some reviews http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...ss_soundcard/1

http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-xonar-d2x-review/1

I think I would maybe try the asus xonar card I have a fxi-elite pro and the drivers suck. They seem to be getting better now that they have asus in the sound card business.

SpectatorX · October 17th, 2009, 09:59 PM

If you wanna have x-fi in your machine so buy nothing under titanium. I already have titanium and it is best choice for not big money. All x-fi's more cheap than titanium are low quality audio cards.

Sazabizc · October 17th, 2009, 10:16 PM

I forgot I don't think xf-i can do Dolby or DTS decode on S/pdif input or so I here.

dzap · October 18th, 2009, 12:51 AM

xtreme music is software chipset, so its same as any integrated audio controller regarding audio quality, listen to spectatorx, he was already told whats what not so long ago

btw u should look for that thread as Im to lazy to write it all down again. And anything beside x-fi wont give u anything good in games, as the most only support eax2 when theres eax5.

Good luck mate.

lumo · October 18th, 2009, 12:25 PM

afaik the x-fi extreme music is the same card as the high end cards, but it misses the front panels.
(no software decoding)

i read a review which says xonar does not support FULL eax, but it had better results without eax than creative with eax... so.. :S

note i do want the card on pci as my new mainboard will not have a pcie 1x, only pcie 4x....
(asus p6t deluxe v2 - if nothing better is coming up for the same price)

dzap · October 18th, 2009, 07:16 PM

u can use any pcie 1x card in pcie 4x slot.

oh and: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_B...i_Xtreme_Audio

zme-ul · October 18th, 2009, 07:56 PM

EAX is a non issue since Vista and W7 doesn't support Direct3D Sound
I had a not so pleasing experience with a Xonar; if you're used with Creative software, go with that
also, what SpectatorX said, don't go under Ti series

lumo · October 19th, 2009, 11:57 AM

ok so....
ASUS Xonar D2X, PCIe x1 (90-YAA055-1UAN00Z)
OR
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro Series, PCIe (70SB088600000)

means i get both for same price (i only have two distributors here)
125 euro. (although i am not sure which pro the pcie has for me.... beside more space for pci...)

i wonder about sound quality (as eax is not available in v7 and vista anyway...)

SpectatorX · October 19th, 2009, 12:19 PM

Before i bought my sound card i've read a lot about xonars and x-fi's. A lot of people had issues with drivers for xonar. Games under xonar were crushing or eax effects wasn't working as they should. When i was reading about x-fi's most of their users were satisfied with them and their drivers, that's why i chose x-fi. I've never had xonar so i can't tell you any thing about its sound quality, but i can tell you that i'm impressed with my titanium's sound quality.