I'm gonna buy a new soundcard and speakers and both hafta be 5.1 I'm thinking of the SounBlaster Audigy Player info with Creative Inspire 5.1 5300 info I can buy these in 1 package for 229 euro but I also can buy Philips PSC 705 Seismic Edge info with Philips A5.1 Extreme Surround info for 161 euro wich is 70 euro less then the creative would cost me. So i need your advice cuze I dont know shit about soundcards(I got a soundblaster 128pci now with some stupid philips speakers lol :swt: ) wich do u think is best (currently I like the creative desing of the speakers better but its 70 euro more) And also the creative ones only got EAX 1.0 and 2.0 but the philips have that plus A3D (wich is better for cs if anyone tested?) wich is more suported and will be in future also ? If there is any other soundcard/speakers I should look at let me know When I'm gonna buy it I'm also gonna buy that 8mb cache harddisk of WD but on the site of the shop they say only the 100 and 120gb are special edition although the 80gb also have 8mb cache so whats up with this? And finally I might gonna buy watercooling but I wanna know if its save enough and where to order it since no shops in the Netherlands sell it ? Damn I cant wait untill I buy this Thx EDIT: hell forgot about the watercooling I read here that they are 450 dollar if u find any cheaper then 250 euro then let me now
For all the hype about it, the Audigy is extremely overrated. If it's available, I'd consider the Hercules GameTheater XP or their Fortissimo III (Fortissimo I & II have been excellent cards for me and I assume this about the F3) Creative would be better, but they have bloated software that takes forever to install---even on 1GHz+ machines which is ridiculous IMO---and they have pretty bad support in general. I'm sure Philips is good, but I can't say I've used their cards yet. I will vouch for Hercules, though. They make very solid products.
they sell the Game Theatre XP 7.1 for 169 euro and the Gamesurround Fortissimo III 7.1 for 69 euro so I prob would get the second cuze 169 euro is to much It has EAX and A3D Sinds this is 7.1 dolby surround I should get 7.1 speakers but the shop doesnt have any should I just get 5.1 or what ? Btw can I put speakers of creative on the Hercules or wouldnt I get the best preformance I saw a Creative 6.1 6700 for 125 euro and why doesnt it have a wireless remote control :swt:
If you can I would hold off a few weeks to see what nforce 2 boards pricing comes in at. From speculation on the pricing it seems as though you might be able to get a major upgrade for a bit more than the cost of an Audigy. As far as speakers go I've owned the 5300's and they're a bit overpriced for the quality compared to some other brands, My first choice would be Klipsche but their a bit on the expensive side so you might want to check out the YAMAHA TSS1 5.1 DOLBY/DTS DIGITAL SPEAKER SYSTEM. It should outperform the 5300's give you DTS support and at least in Canada are comparably priced. for a review on the Yamaha set check out this link.
Feature and performance wise, the original nForce is a complete steal---and nVidia's come a long way on getting their audio drivers sorted out. My main box uses an nForce board, and it's one of the best motherboards I've used in general. Of course, if that's not your cup of tea (if it is, look at the nForce 2 boards, not the original nForce) getting a relatively inexpensive sound card like the Fortissimo III or the Acoustic Edge would be a better bet. If you plan on a lot of music work, the GameTheater would be worth the money, but I'm guessing you don't. Anyway, as far as speakers are concerned, if you got the money, go for something nice. Creative's 5300's may be 5.1, but the 4400's are nearly 1/2 the price despite being only 4.1. Any more than 4.1 and Creative's speakers get a bit too pricey for me. They're not horrible, but if you have the money for something better, by all means go for it. The Klipsch are sweet, tho I'm not sure I'd go for it. Altec Lansing has a nice 5.1 setup---but it's gonna be fairly costly. I want to say it's around $125 USD, but I'm not totally sure. I also can't think of the model # either:swt:
Also you might want to look out for Logitech's Z-640 5.1 speakers, I haven't really heard anything about them but if their anywhere near the Z-560 speakers you won't be disappointed. They retail on alienware.com for $99 which tends to charge a bit more than most so hopefully they should be on the cheap end of the price scale in Europe.
Ok I decided wich I'm gonna buy: Hercules XPS-510 5.1 Speakers for 85 euro Hercules Fortissimo III 7.1 Retail PCI for 67 euro This is a bargain since this is 152 euro and I was gonna spend 230 euro that saves me 80 euro Thx for all your help guys
bah bah bah I just read here that they suck I'm not gonna buy it I wanna be sure I get good quality sound cuze I listen to music alot damn I hate it when I cant decide and they dont sell the YAMAHA speakers anywhere on dutch shoppingsites
Here's the link to Klipsch's 5.1 setup. They're quite expensive, I paid about $500 US when I got mine, and while I believe you can find them for around $350-$400 now they still work out to be about double what you'd pay for a Cambridge or Yamaha set.
ehehe they are 595 euro and they havent even come out here untill the end of the month I might go for the Inspire 6.1 6700 from Creative they are only 119 euro. The site of creative says u need the audigy 2 for Dolby Digital® Surround EX playback but the Hercules Fortissimo III 7.1 for only 69 euro has that also It has 22 watt RMS but I dont really know what it is ?? Should I get these then ? EDIT:lol I just read that the inspire 6.1 6700 is named 6600 in usa and asia, can anyone tell why ?
Allright I finally bought a new soundcard and its the Audigy 2(after much talking at 3d soundsorge forum ) But I still havent bought the speakers I might buy the Logitech z-640 as many ppl say there r good but I'm still not sure
Do they happen to have the Z-680's available locally? If so you might want to look into them although I'm not sure what the price difference is between the 640 & 680's. Review from Extreme Tech.
They didnt have the 680 I bought the z-640 today and they sound awesome I never heard such sound come from a computer I also bought a dvd/cdrw combo from philips(to replacemy fecking slow 4x burner) its 32x(i know I could have got 48x but its dvd combo with dvd 12x) and it burned a whole audio cd of 80 mins in 4 mins time(do we really need faster then this lol) I still need to buy that WD harddisk but I dont have enough cash now so gonna w8 few weeks(anyone know when the prices will drop?) BTW did anyone ever heard dvd audio ? its sooo nice I gotten a sample cd with my audigy 2 and if u listen to the classical music(no I dont like it,its good for testing sound ) its like its live ! I cant w8 untill dvd audio is standard for music or better untill they have mp3 with dvd audio support
