Need a new sound card

[SewerRanger]

I bought a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 a while ago. I've had nothing but trouble from this card. Several of my video games have crashed because of the sound card (disabling sound is the only way to get some games to even work). I've always keep the sound card drivers up to date but that never seemed to help me. I'd like to get a new card but I don't really know much about sound cards. I'm not looking for anything special. I have two computer speakers that sound decent enough but I'm really only playing games on my computer not music or movies. Anyone have any suggestions in the $50 - $100 range? Until I get a new one, I think I'll switch back to my on board sound card (I've got an Intel 865PERL board)

 

[pchoi04]

Could it be a defective soundcard?

I currently have an X-Fi and I upgraded from an audigy gamer and I was blown away. Very impressed by the X-Fi and there right in that price range.

 

[ausch30]

I have had an Audigy 2 for about 5 years and it still works great, I have a feeling that you might have gotten a bad one. That said depending on what 2 speaker system you have you really don't need much of a sound card. This would be more than enough for your needs and the card would allow you to have slightly higher frame rates due to it taking the audio processing load away from your CPU.

 

[Crashman]

Yeh, a DIAMOND XtremeSound XS71DDL will cost you around $50 and give you Dolby Digital Live, just in case you like gaming through digital speakers.

 

[SewerRanger]

I thought it might be a bad card too, but I read a lot about how Sound Blaster cards were finiky. That they had to be in the highest PCI slot to work correctly. Stuff of that nature.

 

[malphadour]

After having problems and general dissatisfaction with a SB 5.1 PLayer (in fact 2 of them on different machines gave me probs) and then again issues with an Audigy, I swore I would never have another peice of s*** Creative card in one of my PC's again.

.
...
.........

As you can see from my profile I have a Creative Labs X-Fi Pro Elite. Ahem.

All I can say is that this was a completely different experience than the previous cards, not only did it install and work ok, but it is massivley configurable, actually comes with very good software and the sound quality (both recording and playback) is truly superb.

If you just want it for games, then the basic X-Fi card is a decent price and will also give you a slight FPS increase vs the audigy due to its massive processing power which slightly reduceds CPU load for sound generation.

 

[katanadude]

I'm currently gathering parts for a new build. I have read review after review of different sound cards. I have decided that I am going to purchase this one. Check it out, see if you might like it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829127002

 

[malphadour]

I'm currently gathering parts for a new build. I have read review after review of different sound cards. I have decided that I am going to purchase this one. Check it out, see if you might like it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829127002

Ignore, misread this as based on cmedia 8780 chip set which was not always so clever, the 8788 is a decent chip.

 

[Crashman]

he could get an 8788 with front panel audio connector:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829271002