Building a new PC

Originally posted by Slaymate@Sep 27 2007, 08:03 PM
Except fot the sound card I don't think I settled for anything less with
my picks. And the sound card issue is debatable. On-board sound is
better than ever these days. And the sound card was always just an
improvement on the cpu workload in most cases. With Quad core CPU's
the xtra workload just isn't a viable issue anymore, in my opinion.
The mobo I picked has built-in High Defintion sound. If you want a Sound
card then pick one that is worth the xtra money, in my opinion.

Yup thanks for the help. Will be ordering this baby in the next few weeks (Hopefully before Crysis? :O)

Originally posted by Slaymate@Sep 28 2007, 01:03 AM
Except fot the sound card I don't think I settled for anything less with
my picks. And the sound card issue is debatable. On-board sound is
better than ever these days. And the sound card was always just an
improvement on the cpu workload in most cases. With Quad core CPU's
the xtra workload just isn't a viable issue anymore, in my opinion.
The mobo I picked has built-in High Defintion sound. If you want a Sound
card then pick one that is worth the xtra money, in my opinion.

I don't see how not selecting ultra sound settings in games is ok or how settling for anything less then 96 k is when you have a good soun system, but fine. Good luck with your onboard sound. Any degradation in performance is viable if you want state of the art, settling for less isn't an option when pay for the best.

Yeah well Vista x64 drivers for XFi suck ass and most gamers, particularly, Americans (), wouldn't appreciate the difference between soundcards, because they don't have decent enough speaker systems in the first place. Even as a XFi user myself, I have only 1 game in my collection that has an Ultra setting for XFi users and because of the new soundstack in Vista, it is completely useless. EAXHD5.0 in games is not available without severe aggrevation and additional utilities.

As Slay has been trying to say. If you have a Quad core CPU and an 8800GTX/Ultra the loss of 2-3fps is quite easy to swallow...

Obviously, the best thing to do is wait for the new range of PCI-Express XFi cards due out soon. Hopefully they will be DX10.1 compatible or at least have improved drivers.

I have Battlefield 2, Far cry, Call of duty 2, Doom 3, Company of heroes and the new expansion opposing front coming this weekend by mail, all ultra. Crysis is going to feature an ultra setting and so do tons of other games, who wants to have the limit of 24 channels anyway. You are right about the drivers though, must be said they fixed 75% of their initial issues by now anyway. The new beta drivers are coming out this month btw.

However, the most used feature of the X-fi by me ( have it on by default, so that isn't such an accomplishment ) is the x-fi crystallizer which makes mp3 sound like it's uncompressed. That feature also greatly helps in determining the origin of gunfire in BF2 for example. All in all I only see the lack of a x-fi card good for people who don't put high standards to their hardware, not for hardware enthusiasts.

I do get the point in waiting for another card though, although where would it then? A new series of 8000 cards is coming out soon which will be completely dx 10.1 compatible, new ddr3 memory is already here and a new pci standard as well. Also, with Bush as their president it's really clear no American listens anyway and acts randomly without putting thought into it :P

However, this post is about getting Cow the best config we can, and I doubt that's being accomplished here. He's investing a lot of money into it and every option should be carefully lloked at by comparing the stats and figures. Not by saying, I have a stacker and onboard sound and since I don't know anything else you won't either.

all this talk about sound cards has me confused.. i have a creative soundblasters audigy 2 6.1 is that a x fi card? or am i missing out?? i have xp

It's not a x-fi card but you can download the latest x-fi drivers anyway so you can at least take full advantage of the software that comes with it. For hints and tips on how to do that I suggest you visit the official creative site and take a look around their forums.

I'll be ordering a X-FI soon, i'd love the sound quality and would take off some of the load from my quad cpu, though not much

(But i'm a soundfreak)

with my creative soundblasters audigy 2 6.1 is that a load on my cpu ? or am i just missing great sound? im just curious if its worth throwing more money at a new x-fi card and how much are these x-fi cards?

Originally posted by Cream_CurdlR@Oct 31 2007, 04:43 PM
with my creative soundblasters audigy 2 6.1 is that a load on my cpu ? or am i just missing great sound? im just curious if its worth throwing more money at a new x-fi card and how much are these x-fi cards?

In the end not rly I bought X-fi straight away when it came out and had audigy 2 pro. At first it’s awesome with all those options like CMSS-3D "stereo spread to all speakers" and so called 24bit crystallizer "witch just makes dynamics feel deeper and bass slightly sharper" nowhere near real 24bit quality tho its closer
So if you into listening music its a ++
When making music or playing games it’s no different from audigy 2 yes it has EAX 5 and unlocks 128 sound channels but not many games support it and the ones that do have issues. At least for me for instance BF series suffers from crackling noises every time someone calls in artillery, not nice.
I'd hold on to that audigy if I where you and wait what creative has up their sleeves

ok thank i dont have any crackleing noises and i dont listen to music so i guess ill stay put thanks again