Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, mac_h8r1, Nemesis
yammerpickle2 wrote:In my previous XP build I has creative X-Fi extreme. I love the positioning and clarity. With my current Win 7 64-bit pro I tried to reuse the board, but the driver nightmares made me pull the card, and use the on board. My Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 is not bad. It has Realtek ALC889 codec, supports 2/4/5.1/7.1-channel, Dolby® Home Theater, and I use the S/PDIF Out to my Onkyo 7.1 receiver to Polk Monitors, and Definitive Supercube sub. I have Wennheiser P-360 headphones. However, I miss the clarity and positioning I had with a dedicated card. I'm torn between letting Creative drivers bite me again and go for the Sound Blaster ZxR, or go with the Asus ROG Xonar Phoebus, or possibly the Xonar Essence One. I use my system for gaming, and sometimes for work. I'm open to your suggestions and recommendations.
cynan wrote:I have an HT Omega Claro Halo and find it pretty great for music from a PC sound card. That Claro II looks like a newer offering. I wonder why they stuck with PCI instead of PCIe, given that less and less new motherboards even have PCI...
ronch wrote:There's been no reason to buy a PCI sound card in the past 5 years. Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium was PCIe in 2008.cynan wrote:Yeah, IMHO, unless you really want a particular card, I don't think it makes sense to invest in a PCI sound card these days. Sound cards should survive a few upgrade cycles so it's quite probable that any PCI sound card you buy today won't be supported by your next motherboard, given how board makers have been phasing out PCI for a while now.I wonder why they stuck with PCI instead of PCIe, given that less and less new motherboards even have PCI...
JustAnEngineer wrote:ronch wrote:There's been no reason to buy a PCI sound card in the past 5 years. Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium was PCIe in 2008.cynan wrote:Yeah, IMHO, unless you really want a particular card, I don't think it makes sense to invest in a PCI sound card these days. Sound cards should survive a few upgrade cycles so it's quite probable that any PCI sound card you buy today won't be supported by your next motherboard, given how board makers have been phasing out PCI for a while now.I wonder why they stuck with PCI instead of PCIe, given that less and less new motherboards even have PCI...
JustAnEngineer wrote:ronch wrote:There's been no reason to buy a PCI sound card in the past 5 years. Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium was PCIe in 2008.cynan wrote:Yeah, IMHO, unless you really want a particular card, I don't think it makes sense to invest in a PCI sound card these days. Sound cards should survive a few upgrade cycles so it's quite probable that any PCI sound card you buy today won't be supported by your next motherboard, given how board makers have been phasing out PCI for a while now.I wonder why they stuck with PCI instead of PCIe, given that less and less new motherboards even have PCI...
ronch wrote:@NEC_V20:
Not sure about modern, high end boards having PCI slots. AFAIK Intel itself has practically stopped supporting PCI for a while now. In fact, to support PCI, board makers are having to resort to third-party PCI bus chips to, er, provide the PCI bus.
And on the contrary, the boards that still support PCI are not the high end ones with the latest chipsets. Those that have PCI slots are te cheaper ones, which probably aren't gonna last much longer on store shelves either.
UltimateImperative wrote:Unlike the CPU/GPU performance chain, every step along the audio path degrades the signal so it's important for every single step to be at least of decent enough quality.
If the ALC892 datasheet is correct, it should be decent enough: THD+N is at approx. 0.006% (-84 dB), vs. 0.003 % (-90 dB) for the ALC889. The distortion introduced by any speaker outside of insane servo-controlled speakers will dwarf that.
just brew it! wrote:IOW, it *is* an apples-to-apples comparison of noise and distortion, in spite of the scale discrepancy.
Captain Ned wrote:Looks like the filter also has trouble controlling the ringing at the voltage translation points.
JustAnEngineer wrote:The P8P67-M Pro motherboard that I purchased January 8, 2011 had zero PCI slots.
The last PCI card that I ever purchased was a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS in 2003.
just brew it! wrote:Seems like for a while it was trendy to go "legacy free" - only one PCI slot, and leave off one (or both) of the PS/2 ports. I think motherboard vendors have figured out that a lot of people still want legacy connectivity.
Savyg wrote:just brew it! wrote:Seems like for a while it was trendy to go "legacy free" - only one PCI slot, and leave off one (or both) of the PS/2 ports. I think motherboard vendors have figured out that a lot of people still want legacy connectivity.
It was? Until last week I'd only seen one legacy free mobo (well, with no PS/2 ports anyway...still waiting on boards with no PS/2 or PCI.)
Airmantharp wrote:It's seriously not that hard. All this talk about 'other' sound cards belies the fact that outside of Creative (I'm bleeding on the inside to say this) sound card drivers suck.