Nforce2 or Audigy2

I am building a new machine on an nforce2 platform. I was wondering weather the onboard sound supplied by nvidia will give me better results, mainly for music and games (i wont be watching movies). I havn't heard much about the Audigy2, but I need to know if it will perform better then the nforce2 in music/games.

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Kill a man and you're a murderer;
Kill many and you're a conquerer;
Kill 'em all and you're a god.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Toss5000 on 11/24/02 05:54 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

First of all, you have to ensure your motherboard has SoundStorm features but not the APU only as SoundStorm is the true hardware Dolby Digital 5.1 encoder. If you have SoundStorm, I would recommend you use the on-board sound to save your cash. Though Audigy2 is superior to SoundStorm technically but you should lok at the sky high price also. But in gaming, thgere might be a little downside for SoundStorm because it does not support EAX, A3D etc. features. SoundStorm is kind of like the sound chip of Micro$oft XBox, though.

Plug & Play? How about Plug & Pray!

Yes you can, it comes with nForce2 driver.

Plug & Play? How about Plug & Pray!

Once my nforce 2 gets here I'll be using my Audigy1 in it. The nforce2 audio (same thing as the nforce 1 audio) was said to be about equivelent to a SB Live at the time of its initial release.

The nforce audio does support EAX1/2 for gaming but the audigy has EAX 3 and probably has (i will be one to test for myself but havent heard definitly) better audio quality.

For gaming, the audigy 1 is just as good as the 2nd (revision). The audigy 1 also can be found online for about $50-60 in oem form, while there is no oem audigy 2, but if there ever is expect similar pricing.

The audigy 1 should have better sound quality than the nforce and has lower cpu utilization.

But if you dont already have an audigy, just use onboard, its the next best thing to an audigy, unless your a games freak like myself and want EAX Advanced HD.

Athlon 1700+, Epox 8RDA+ (Nforce2), 2x256mb Crucial PC2100, Geforce 3, Audigy, Z560s