Any good pci 2.2 sound cards out there?

[V3NOM]

hi all!
never posted in the sound card section before unfamiliar territory and many new faces...

anywho, im gettin an evga 750i FTW mobo, and it only has pci 2.2 slots not 2.3... are there any 2.2 cards out there that anyone knows of? lookin to fill em up

 

[dobby]

backward forward compatible i think.
just get a ASUS zonar. that will give you best bang for buck, support all the top standards and it doesnt use creative chips, win win.

 

[V3NOM]

what's wrong with creative chips? i thought they were hte market leaders, lol...im kind of new to the whole sound card thing i have always used onboard sound with my previous rigs

 

[halcyon]

V3nom, there's a strong anti-Creative sentiment amongst many. This often is at least due to a past history of poor driver support and the intentional disabling of features in Vista that were available in XP. A driver modder, Daniel Kawakami, modded some of Creative's drivers to restore functionality that Creative said was impossible to reinstate in Vista. Then Creative pretty much threatened to rape him legally ( http://infsq.co.uk/2008/05/25/creative-and-the-daniel-k-saga/ ). It was not pretty and cost Creative a lot of loyal customers.

In the end it caused Creative to cave-in and not only provide rock-solid drivers in Vista but to do what they initially said was impossible...to re-instate features for its cards in Vista that they'd said was impossible...Dolby Digital and DTS, etc.

Its unfortunate this the scenario had to play out like it did but in the end the customers made out with very nice drivers from Creative...finally.

 

[gamerk316]

The other problem with Creative is thier products don't like nForce motherboard very well; After about an hour, the sounds comming from the card will come out scratchy (and Creative seems to have no idea how to fix it...).

 

[halcyon]

I've indeed seen this on some and not on others. For instance, I'm seeing this on my wife's XPS600 when there's 4GB of RAM installed (its fine with only 2GB of RAM installed). I never had the problem at all on my Asus Striker Extreme (680i) with 8GB of RAM installed.

I've heard that bios updates from the mobo mfr. may fix this, but since Dell has given up supporting the XPS600 with BIOS updates I may never know.

 

[E3210]

Like any company that claim a niche in a specific part of the computing market, they grew sloply. Forgot their customers in the pursuit of greater prophets. Don't buy creative because right now they are overpriced and they suck. The asus xonar card with pci e compatibility is excellent, with great sound quality, even if it is expensive. Keep in mind that you need to get great speaker (or I would recommend headphones) to even be able to tell the difference. With headphones look to spend about as much as you will on the card, with speakers much more.

 

[V3NOM]

lol i think i might just stick with the onboard sound on the 750i FTW... im not gonna have it turned up too loud lol

 

[halcyon]

V3NOM, the onboard sound today is still pretty competitive. Its only if you're really looking for that cleanest of clean or that little boost that you can get from a Creative APU that justifies a sound card.

 

[uncle_ben]

Quite contrary to the self-acclaiming crowd here I'd stay away from the company that is misleading people on purpose claiming e.g. full EAX support. When in fact all Xonar does is a software emulation that works in some games and it doesn't in some other games.

In case you lived under a rock: there is a an ongoing mud throwing contest directed at Creative among Asus fanboys and promoters, but just keep in mind Asus past claims e.g. about their Energy Processing Unit that allegededly delivered "up to 80.23-percent" energy savings. Phrasing would be just another harmless garbage from brainless marketing folks except for the fact that the unit was found not to exist... Or that case when Asus provided reviewers with Wee machines equipped with higher capacity batteries from those they were selling on the market.

Just go google for "Asus fooled customers" see what you get and think twice before buying anything from Asus.

I am using X-Fi sound card in the nForce4 board under Vista and have no issues.
It is a solid card that has lasted almost 3 years so far and I see no reason why it wouldn't last another 7
Drivers were brutal initially but have improved big time and Creative actually offer regular updates now.

If I was buying a card today I would get X-Fi Gamer for around 60 bucks, more than half price of what I have paid once X-Fi was launched. Keep in mind X-Fi Gamer is fully EAX compatible .

 

[halcyon]

Creative is doing a much better job with drivers now, they need to keep that up consistently to regain the trust of the customers alienated by the poor past drivers and the "Daniel K." debacle. However, if Auzentech can get their drivers to be as rock-solid as Creative's current releases they'll have Creative beat in the consumer high-end segment with the Prelude. ...ease of use, functionality, and audiophile-quality components.

In the meantime, I'm still loving my ElitePro (sans breakbout box) card I got my hands on.

 

[V3NOM]

is there vista 64 premium drivers for any cheap xfi cards?

 

[dobby]

i think asus have sorted there drivers out, but say when windows 7 comes out, while there be good driver then, i hope so, but have they actually learnt their lesson?

and to clarify, i am certainly not an Asus fanbio, and i will not be buying an asus motherboard in a hurry after a very bad experience with a p5k, when thier own software bugged out in a bios flash.

as for the adaptor i use, i use a m-audio firewire 410, as i record and edit music, and require fully rated inputs like XLR, 1/2" jack and optical in out. if you want good sound get a card, if your not fussed stick wiht what you got; integrated is more than good enough for anything below 320 mp3

 

[V3NOM]

k.