Need a cheap sound card

[craqon]

Hi

I need a nice cheap sound card. Not only am I tone deaf but also an idiot with sound. I bought a set of Genius Home Theatre 5.1, which is rather nice for the price.

Now my mobo is an Epox 8RDA (onboard AC97, not Soundstorm) so it doesn't quite want to have 6.1 outputs. I also have a SoundBlaster Live, but it only have jacks for 4 channels.

Now the Genius set 2 cables I van use. One is a speaker plug to 2x RCA, which gives me stereo, but with all speakers. The plug I want to use is a 1x 9 pin dinn to 3x speaker plug (Front, Rear and sub/mid) I can probably go for a soundcard with a 9 pin out as well.

As I see I have two options.

Buy the Epox 8RDA3l (gives me Soundstorm 6.1, a friend will buy my old board)
Buy a better sound card (basic choice between a A-Open AS9600 and a Genius SoundMaker Live 5.1)

Both those options will cost me about $13, sadly that's about my choices. Creative is too expensive here.

Any ideas on what are the better option?

Thanks


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You take my breath away.

But what have you stepped in to smell this way?

 

[Crashman]

Hey, if you can get the money back out of your old board through a friend, I'd buy the new board in your position.

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[craqon]

Problem is I like my board. Just got used to the fact that I'm restricted to USB input only. (My PS2 ports don't work, don't even ask, he he)

It clocks my CPU (AMD XP2500) to XP3000 no problems, stockie HSF and 1 case fan, and it's 39 degrees Celsius outside.

I also have the option of a Chaintech 7.1 AV-710

The prob is that I've only heard bad things about onboard sound.

Most games I play needs Creative's EAX1/2 for surround. Just a bit scared to fork out and in the end my nifty card doesn't have surround in unsupported titles. Sorry for being ignorant with sound, I want it easy and to work. I have about an hour or two to play with my own PC per day. Work takes it's toll.

__
You take my breath away.

But what have you stepped in to smell this way?