Hey all,
I'm not a big sound-card enthusiast. In fact, the sound card is the last thing on my mind when I'm thinking of increasing my pc performance.
So all these years, from my first 486 to the last build (d805 @ 3.4Ghz) I've been cheaping out on sound cards.
Basically this means I was using built-in sound cards (codecs) ever since they became the norm on motherboards. Lately, the quality of 3D surround was getting worse on my "Audiomax" abit 7.1 channel onboard soundcard... so I upgraded to an Audigy 4 SE. Wow, what a difference. Crystal clear sound and none of that annoying background noise and hissing as soon as you turn up the volume. My 5.1 setup sounds a lot better now, not to mention the added EAX4.0 support.
If any of you are having doubts about the worthiness of downing 50 bucks on upgrading from basic built-in mobo sound - it's definitely worth it. Unless you use your sound card exclusively to listen to the joys of those little windows alert sounds, you'll notice a measurable difference in quality.
CHeers
I'm not a big sound-card enthusiast. In fact, the sound card is the last thing on my mind when I'm thinking of increasing my pc performance.
So all these years, from my first 486 to the last build (d805 @ 3.4Ghz) I've been cheaping out on sound cards.
Basically this means I was using built-in sound cards (codecs) ever since they became the norm on motherboards. Lately, the quality of 3D surround was getting worse on my "Audiomax" abit 7.1 channel onboard soundcard... so I upgraded to an Audigy 4 SE. Wow, what a difference. Crystal clear sound and none of that annoying background noise and hissing as soon as you turn up the volume. My 5.1 setup sounds a lot better now, not to mention the added EAX4.0 support.
If any of you are having doubts about the worthiness of downing 50 bucks on upgrading from basic built-in mobo sound - it's definitely worth it. Unless you use your sound card exclusively to listen to the joys of those little windows alert sounds, you'll notice a measurable difference in quality.
CHeers