Ok, I'm stepping up to an SN85G4 Athlon64 box and need an opinion on this. The Nforce2 chipset on my previous cube was using the embedded "Soundstorm" setup thats actually a kick butt sound chip. However, Nvidia decided with its Nforce 150 chipset to forgo the chip in favor of an ALC650 AC97 audio chip .
So here is my dilemma: do I use the embedded chip, or use my Creative Audigy Gamer card? I will be gaming with this box, but the reason I wonder about using the Audigy has more to do with overall driver quality. The reason my Audigy was pulled in the first place (beside the fact that the SoundStorm was embedded) was Creative's drivers were a bloated mess of unwanted software. Second, the Audigy (First edition, not II) had issue with the quality of the sound it produced. They will be attached to some Logitech Z-5300 speakers. Lastly, if not the embedded or Audigy, then what? (Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, Audigy II, or, Hercules Fortissimo III).
The well has run dry and I'd like to stick with a solution I already posses but I figured you guys could give me a good heads up. What do you think?
-E