Lf Sound Card Advice

cudeater313 · 10-04-09, 09:03 AM

Hi Im Looking For A Awesome! Sound Card Mainly For Music and by mainly i mean every second im on my pc i got itunes or winamp up...

what would be the best sound card for a media lover such as myself
if its good for gaming thats also a plus!
i use z-5500 speakers logitech (awesome speakers)
my budget for a sound card would be about 80 pounds so nothing too fancy

i dont know what motherboard im getting yet so i cant specify

jass · 10-06-09, 11:35 AM

For 80£ you can get a decent X-Fi or one of the Xonar cards. I would recommend X-Fi as they are better suited for gaming compared to Xonars but still they do not lack anything for music playback. If there are (enough) PCI slots on the board you can get a PCI card they are cheaper, PCI-e is more future proof though.

Myself I am using the first version of the X-Fi card (PCI) but if I was buying now and have your budget I would definitely get this X-Fi Titanium card for £69. Xonars are decent too, a friend of mine has one and he likes it but the software that comes with them is pretty generic - same settings, some panels as you have with onboard audio. Apparently Asus uses a rebranded c-media chip, the same that is used for realtek onboard audio, so most processing on xonars is done in software.

z5500 are awesome indeed, a bit too bassy for my liking but they are great for movies and games. (I prefer stereo for music)

10-04-09, 09:03 AM	#1
cudeater313 Registered User Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 12	Lf Sound Card Advice Hi Im Looking For A Awesome! Sound Card Mainly For Music and by mainly i mean every second im on my pc i got itunes or winamp up... what would be the best sound card for a media lover such as myself if its good for gaming thats also a plus! i use z-5500 speakers logitech (awesome speakers) my budget for a sound card would be about 80 pounds so nothing too fancy i dont know what motherboard im getting yet so i cant specify

10-06-09, 11:35 AM	#2
jass Registered User Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Eire Posts: 49	Re: Lf Sound Card Advice For 80£ you can get a decent X-Fi or one of the Xonar cards. I would recommend X-Fi as they are better suited for gaming compared to Xonars but still they do not lack anything for music playback. If there are (enough) PCI slots on the board you can get a PCI card they are cheaper, PCI-e is more future proof though. Myself I am using the first version of the X-Fi card (PCI) but if I was buying now and have your budget I would definitely get this X-Fi Titanium card for £69. Xonars are decent too, a friend of mine has one and he likes it but the software that comes with them is pretty generic - same settings, some panels as you have with onboard audio. Apparently Asus uses a rebranded c-media chip, the same that is used for realtek onboard audio, so most processing on xonars is done in software. z5500 are awesome indeed, a bit too bassy for my liking but they are great for movies and games. (I prefer stereo for music) __________________ Specs change but the wattage remains the same. Last edited by jass; 10-06-09 at 11:37 AM. Reason: corrected the model