I'm in the process of selecting components for a new PC, and talking about it with my friend. His opinion is that the audio on the motherboard sounds just as good as any soundcard out there. Then again, my ears seem more sensitive to music quality than most people. Gaming audio and music listening are very important for me. I want to have clear and crisp sound. Surround sound is important too for games. I am looking at a SB X-Fi Extreme music, in to be combined with 5.1 surround boxes or headphones. So what do you think? Are they overrated? Would I benefit from such a card, or would you say 'just drop the card'?
That depends on the person. For the casual user, the on-board sound is usually fine. Then you have the audiophiles that need a better sound solution than what's packaged. For me, the Dynamic Edge I have works just as well as a SoundBlaster Live! or Audigy, and I'm sure it'd be the same with the X-Fi. Now, Creative leans more toward gaming than other companies, so if you're not gaming, then you might want to look at products by M-Audio or Terratec.
Buuuuut, the great thing about the Creative line is that they have excellent surround, which is a must for a gamer.
the best deal out right now imo is the Abit Fatality mobo with the fatality sound system included. the sound system itself cost $300, but if u get the board it is included for only $218. I have always had creative products and have been happy with them. the x-fi is a great card and incredible for gaming. I also watch Dvds on my comp sometimes and the sound card with surround sound is awesome. Creative ftw
It is true that on-board sound is getting better. And the AC'97 is probably one of the better codecs. But you would hear the difference straight away with a dedicated sound card.
I can recommend the Creative X-FI FPS Edition as a good soundcard. My old 5.1 Live! wasnt really up to the job of true 5.1, but the X-FI performs far better. Playing games like FEAR and BF2 was a new experience
FPS? Don't think I've seen that model anywhere? I only know Xtreme Music, Platinum, Fatality and Elite Pro?
The Fatality has 2MB's or XRAM or somthing like that, it doesn't do much yet, just think of it as getting a 512MB version of the 7800GTX to play Mathblaster 3d. (okay slight exageration). It's bascially there so future apps and games that require serious computation will have a little cache to work with to keep the audio pumping with all the bells and whistles maxed. That's how I see it anyway, someone else will have a better description I'm sure.
