Tom's Hardware > Forum > CPU & Components > Sound Cards > Shoud I upgrade from Audigy SE to X-Fi extreme music?

Shoud I upgrade from Audigy SE to X-Fi extreme music?

Forum CPU & Components : Sound Cards - Shoud I upgrade from Audigy SE to X-Fi extreme music?

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Im totally happy with the sound quality, but if there is a huge difference in sound quality between Audigy SE and x-fi, then I think I would upgrade.

I use my Audigy SE mainly for listening to music on my logitech x-230 2.1 speakers and for gaming (always with headphones).

Would there be any difference in sound quality on 2.1 speakers if I upgrade? Should I upgrade to X-Fi for my usage or keep audigy SE?

Please help

Tnx :D

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You wouldn't notice a difference with those speakers, PC speakers do not really benefit from expensive sound cards.

Reply to The_Blood_Raven

Yeah, i was thinking of doing something similar. Going from an audigy 2 zs to some xifi sound card. I run logitech x 530's 5.1 and the software has issues on windows xp at times.

Reply to rabidbunny

X-Fi would not really sound better on your system, unless you used more expensive speakers or headphones.
I own an X-Fi and the reasons i bought it were:
1) Virtual speakers over headphones (it really works great!)
2) 24-bit Crystalizer (although it is not a sophisticated solution, it just tunes the sound frequency bandwidths, it works surprisingly well, making all those MP3's sound at least twice as better!)

So if you are an audio fan, then the Crystalizer should change your life to the better for sure, if you are just a casual gamer with the same setup, then the only thing you get with X-Fi is support for EAX 5.0. The quality will only get better by a small margin.

It is true about the software though. It is still very bloated, many useless features and some bugs and annoyances. I am using WinXP and it runs ok there with Direct Sound acceleration, but if you are using Vista forget it. You will need Alchemy (Creative's solution to accelerate OpenAL, by translating Direct Sound calls from games to OpenAL).

For a more all round solution i would go for a PCI-e ASUS sound card. They have better specs, much better drivers and they even emulate EAX 5.0 calls (not 100%, but still very close). The price is a bit high still, but they should go down in time, especially if another 3rd party jumps in the market.

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Reply to darkguset
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