Three Sound Cards, One Choice.

[Nexus21]

I'm putting together a new gaming rig, and I'm looking for a good sound card. I have a choice between three cards that were recommended to me, and I wanted to get your input on which you think is the best card for what I need. As I already said, this machine will be used primarily for gaming and media editing. Also, I will be using a microphone if that makes a difference.

Choices:
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer 7.1
HT OMEGA STRIKER 7.1
ASUS Xonar DX 7.1

 

[Flakes]

personnally out of those i would get the Creative Sound Blaster.

 

[squatchman]

Try onboard sound first. You may be surprised and end up not wasting $100.

 

[gamerk316]

ASUS Xonar

 

[fazers_on_stun]

Try onboard sound first. You may be surprised and end up not wasting $100.

+1. I had an X-Fi that went belly-up on me so I switched to my onboard Realtek 7.1 audio, and was pleasantly surprised after being a die-hard Soundblaster fan for many years. Unless you're a real audiophile, you probably won't notice any difference except the Realtek interface is primitive compared to Creative's.

 

[DiscoDuck]

Unless you have some very high quality speakers or headphones, I doubt you will notice any problems with onboard sound from a new motherboard.

 

[squatchman]

Glad to see there are others that see the light. Especially for gaming when most of what you're going to hear are continuous grunts/explosions and low sampled voice chat.

 

[Nexus21]

Not to be rude or anything, but there's no "4. Onboard Audio" option.

 

[gamerk316]

I still recommend the ASUS Xonar.