Sound cards

Post by **GORDON** » Tue May 01, 2007 7:47 pm

I've lookd and tried to find a straight-forward list, but negative.

What is, currently, the absolutely best sound card in the $90-140 range?

I'm pretty sure it's this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp....A1VIJSM

But I thought I'd look for input.

Then places I thought to check.... most places don't pay much attention to audio cards, any more.

Post by **TheCatt** » Tue May 01, 2007 8:43 pm

With digital sound on a lot of motherboards these days, why even bother?

Post by **GORDON** » Tue May 01, 2007 8:58 pm

I dunno. I keep reading that taking the sound processing off the mobo can take up to 15% of the workload off your CPU in a game.

There's even a NIC that'll do the same, now. It's been benchmarked.

Edited By GORDON on 1178067534

Post by **TheCatt** » Wed May 02, 2007 8:45 am

I guess that helps some. The Killer NIC got benchmarked, but barely helped, iirc.

So this is a new machine u r building, yes? What specs?

Post by **GORDON** » Wed May 02, 2007 12:10 pm

No, but yes.

Building a new machine in the near future... probably a core 2 duo (but I need to see first what AMD did to their pricing on April 22), but the first use for the sound card will probably be in my AMD64 FX machine.

This is part of Operation: Peripheral Upgrade.

My new keyboard is getting delivered today.... unless I decide I need a flight stick/rudder, the sound card is the last thing I "need."

Oh, and all the gamer mags agree that REAL gamers have a dedicated sound card. And I am nothing if not a slave to peer pressure, so there's that.

Edited By GORDON on 1178122270