Getting a sound card

Lockstep

I'm considering getting a new sound card for my Dell Inspiron 531.

I currently have Vista, AMD ATHLON 5600+ dual core processor, a gig of RAM and an Nvidia Geforce 8600 GT 256MB graphics and Realtek High definition audio.


I'm only looking for a cheap soundcard, 20-30 euros? Nothing special but giving me a better sound quality and I heard somewhere that a sound card improves performance as an integrated one takes away system memory or something.


Can anyone direct me to a decent card and where to buy it?

Thanks

yoyo

Well, to be honest with ya, your not going to get a sound card that will do much better than realtek for that money, but I would advise at present against buying a sound card, for the simple fact creatives vista drivers are bruthal, and they'd probably be the cheaper ones you can get, The integrated audio will use up more cpu time than a dedicated sound card and also will not support "hardware sound" but considering creatives vista drivers are junk at present it mite be worth your while waiting before getting one,

Nick

Anti

im running a x-fi on vista and i have never had any problems.

yoyo

Anti wrote: »

im running a x-fi on vista and i have never had any problems.

Not that it wont work, but some of features available in xp are not yet in Vista, Microsoft changed the way audio is managed in Vista, and sound card manufacturers have yet to improve drivers to fully support vista, Technical infos HERE,

Nick

dazftw

The only ever problem I had with vista and my x-fi was my mic would work then turn itself of in teamspeak and ventrillo.. Id turn it back on in the sound control panel and then a few minutes later of it went again!

Lockstep

I'd be willin to pay a bit more, but not go overboard.

What would you reccomend?

TerrorFirmer

You'll also want a really nice pair of speakers to see an improvement, RealTek HD is actually quite nice to be honest. You'd want to be at least doubling your budget for the sound card alone, and then adding on at least 80 quid for a decent set of speakers too to make it worthwhile. Unless you already have a very good set.

Lockstep

Yeah, the problem is that I have some games that are unable to be played using integrated audio. I'm not so much seeking a great improvement as just to play the games with sound, integrated sound must be turned off otherwise.

I have some speakers which do me grand, they were about e30 and have a subwoofer.

astrofool

Upgrading the RAM will give you the biggest performance boost and be quite cheap.

uberpixie

Go for an old creative audigy such as
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=312201 (€40).

That will do exactly what you want and creative cards have the best support for games in general so you can't go wrong really.

TerrorFirmer

kickoutthejams wrote: »

Yeah, the problem is that I have some games that are unable to be played using integrated audio. I'm not so much seeking a great improvement as just to play the games with sound, integrated sound must be turned off otherwise.

I have some speakers which do me grand, they were about e30 and have a subwoofer.

Yes, but the point being that you won't notice any difference with such a cheap pair of speakers between onboard HD and dedicated X-Fi or Audigy....so if you aren't getting a nice pair of speakers, no point shelling out on a good card. I have a semi-decent 5.1 setup and cannot really see any difference between the onboard HD and my X-Fi. I originally planned on getting better speakers too, but don't really care anymore!

Pc World sell basic dedicated cards for about 15 euro, just get one of those. I got a 5.1 C-Media one there for 12.99 a few months back as an emergency, although as a 5.1 card it was appallingly glitchy, for 2.1 it was grand and supports EAX etc. The Audigy above would obviously be miles better but at 40 quid, plus ten for postage or whatever it is, you're spending a good bit of money just to be able to play a game and you won't really see any additional benefits in sound quality to justify it over a cheap one.