Please suggest whether to get a sound card or not :)

[bubuthemonkeyprince]

Hi
i play a lot of games and i am thinking of a getting a new sound card to connect my Sony theatre system to my PC but my PC is old and i would not be upgrading it for at least 6 months and my current motherboard is an AGP one, it does not have any PCI-e slot so i had my eyes on creative USB 5.1 x-fi sound card, you think my system will be able to support an external sound card and my OS is XP SP2.

My SYS specs

P4 3.06
1.5 GB Ram
160 GB HDD
Nvidia 7600 GS GPU
Windows Xp SP 2

 

[djcoolmasterx]

Unless you have decent speakers stick with the onboard.

And for goodness sake, time to move to SP3.

 

[bubuthemonkeyprince]

i have creative 2.1 speaker system but i plan to connect the sound card to my very powerful Sony music system and the main concern i have is if the external sound card will slow my PC and hamper the game performance cuz i only have a P4 3.06 processor.

 

[djcoolmasterx]

I'll leave this for the people that use soundcards to answer.

 

[thuan]

In any case, if you're not using a laptop, you're best with a card either PCI or PCI-Express as USB sound cards tend to use more CPU and that's not good for your purpose. So for now you should stick with your onboard, or buy a PCI card like HT Omega Claro+, or better HT Omega Halo XT if you want headamp and more customization for your sound card.

 

[AKM880]

Yes it'll be able to support it given that your motherboard is probably USB 2.0. You probably have a PCI slot right? If you do you can put a nice one in there.

 

[bubuthemonkeyprince]

thanks for your replys , yes i do have a USB 2.0 slot and a PCI slot as well and after your advice i have changed my mind cuz i cant compromise with the game quality so it is better to go with a PCI card, i have chosen this one, please let me know if this is a good choice or not, its updated version is a PCI-E card which my motherboard does not support, this card is very affordable also

http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Sound-Blaster-XtremeGamer-70SB073A00000/dp/B000J1F1BI/ref=dp_cp_ob_e_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1240732288&sr=8-2

 

[cliffro]

thanks for your replys , yes i do have a USB 2.0 slot and a PCI slot as well and after your advice i have changed my mind cuz i cant compromise with the game quality so it is better to go with a PCI card, i have chosen this one, please let me know if this is a good choice or not, its updated version is a PCI-E card which my motherboard does not support, this card is very affordable also

http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Sound-Blaster-XtremeGamer-70SB073A00000/dp/B000J1F1BI/ref=dp_cp_ob_e_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1240732288&sr=8-2

If you are set on getting the X-fi, then atleast get it here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102006 Its $20 less and has free shipping.

 

[PsyKhiqZero]

If your sony theatre system is not setup in surround sound (5.1 or better) I would advise against getting a sound card altogether. If you plan on getting a new system you'll find that many of them have optical out, that combines with your recievers decoding ability will produce great sound.

Otherwise if you do have a surround sound system. then a good PCI card will still be usable in your next system.

 

[bubuthemonkeyprince]

Cliffro: thanks for that link

PyskhiqZero: thanks for the advice , i think my Sony system is powerful enough to be better than a 5.1 speaker system, also i was wondering if it is necessary to disable onboard audio from BIOS, cant i just unistall the onboard audio drivers and install the drivers of the sound card?

 

[sub mesa]

No reason to put a sound card in your computer. If you want the highest possible sound quality, you have to go S/PDIF digital output which most modern motherboards have; so nothing will beat onboard sound not even the most expensive creative card.

Ofcourse this statement is somewhat false due to the fact a digital signal has to be converted into an analogue signal at one point, but my experience tells me its better to buy an external S/PDIF to speakers amplifier, so you're not dependent on any hardware or special drivers of some kind. This kind of audio equipment could be useful for decades to come. But anything analogue in your computer will just be affected by interference (EMI) and thus reduce sound quality. S/PDIF is rather cheap too.

 

[PsyKhiqZero]

Using vista x64 and widows 7 x64, I've had no problem running multiple sound devices. So you shouldn't have a problem just installing a new sound card.