alright so i read the sound card vs. onboard sound sticky above, and im leaning towards getting a sound card. but im wondering if i could just get a cheapo one. i dont really need surround sound because i'm just using a jbl creature II speaker system (2 speakers, 1 sub). i don't watch movies on my comp. either. all i'll need it for is games and music. i'm thinking of getting this one at newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829120103 . what you guys think?
That Chaintec is an excelent choice. The front channels sound great but the rest of the outputs use cheap DACs, so as long as you stick to the 2.1 it will be great. However that card is Via Envy based so it has no hardware Directsound acceleration and won't save any cpu cycles over the onboard..but it will just sound much better.
oh ok. i was mainly getting the sound card to increase performance, so i would have to look for something with directsound hardware acceleration?
Even if you had a card with Hardware acceleration and all you aren't going to see a huge increase in performance. Usually the main reason to get a soundcard is for better sound. SO yeah grab the AV710 as long as your gonna keep it in stereo mode. That's when they sound the best. I would reccomend a better sound card if your into playing games. GRab yourself A Audigy 2 or better..hope that helps.
x-fi is too much i would think for his budget. also, x-fi doesn't have significant leads in gaming performance over say an audigy 2. if you want to get a cheap sound card for performance in games, see if you can find an audigy or audigy 2 value. Live! 24-bit isn't that bad either and it's very cheap.
Don't get the Live! 24bit..They do not provide hardware acceleration..if anything they might actually slow down your gaming performance..
Yeah, I usually tell guys to stay aways from them. I am not even sure why they made that card it doesn't even have a real 10X series DSP chip...so no EAX acceleration...your CPU does the work..very bady same as a onboard.