help choosing a sound card

[ashiplikethat]

i am looking for a good creative sound card to go with my creative t6060 5.1 and asus a8n32-sli deluxe mb. waht would you reccomend?

is Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music really any better than Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum?

which of these 3 would you choose?

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum eX
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music

 

[FlyGuy]

While I can't speak from experience since I still have the SB Live, I have read that the X-Fi offers a better experience than the Audigy. Not that it matters at the moment, but X-Fi also supports EAX 5.

 

[chuckshissle]

I have xf-i extreme music and it's pretty good specially with gaming and it only cost me $90 to own it. But if you want loud noises with no distortion then a more expensive one would be the solution. I used mine for 2.1 sorround sound bose speakers and headphone for gaming. The 3D is very good in headphone, I can tell where is the sound coming from while playing game like BF2. In entertainment mode the music are really nice and as well as the movies.

The expensive cards are better when it comes to 5.1 or 7.1 with large speakers.

 

[dvdpiddy]

x-fi is better than flyguy's sblive so go with that

 

[FlyGuy]

x-fi is better than flyguy's sblive so go with that

Sure, that's a fair comparison! The live is just barely better than my onboard sound. :?

 

[ziscwg]

Had an A2 ZS and got an xfi music. I could tell the difference. You will need a decent set of speaker to tell. If you want to use headphones a lot and have other various inputs, get the plat edition with the drive bay box.