What should i buy? ssd or sound card?

[ace123]

i'd like to get either a ssd or a sound card.my motherboard is a asus p6x58D premium.
how is the p6x58d's onboard sound compared to the x-fi titanium fatality editions?
and is it worth it going championship and not pro for front panel ports?
and if ssd option is better choice,then what ssd should i get? 64mb g.skill phoenix? or crucial realssd 64gb or 128gb option?
i do plan on going ssd sometime later anyways,and i just want to launch apps and boot from the ssd and not copy anything else or do file handing with the ssd. im going for gaming build,thats why i want the pc to give dedicated sound and turn off onboard sound in bios to boost up some more performance and turn temps down a bit more with inactive soundbox (temp freak,going to overclock mad),and all games will be launched from the wd caviar black.so please tell me what i should get,ssd or sound card?

as im going to launch and run games from the wd caviar hdd,do i even need the ssd? (i rarely turn my pc off btw) and as for faster app loading...just how necessary would it be to have an ssd when i rarely turn pc off and only thing i'll prolly do with ssd is launch firefox or a web browser? would i even be able to tell the difference in surfing or launching small program apps from ssd or the hdd? (7200rpm,64mb)

and as for the sound card,is the front panel of the fatality champ worth it? (freeing up mobo area as champ editions have front 5.25 bay where sound card is on THERE instead of usual pci-e slot from mobo between two heating 5770 on x-fire and creating more heat or should i just buy pro as extra heat from sound card doesnt matter much?

 

[pertshire]

I think you would only notice the benifits of a sound card when you paired it up with a good quality speaker (but not neccesarily expensive). But then again unless you're an audiophile and assuming you have a good speaker there's a good chance you would not notice any difference in sound quality at all apart from one is louder than the other. Some people I know said that.

Personaly I would go for the ssd because of faster load times and games load faster but I read on anandtech (can i mention the website?) that some games does load faster with an ssd but others have no difference.

But I think your already happy with the caviar black aren't you? so I guess since you're not doing i/o intensive work or much productivity work and your only using it for gaming you could save the money to finance your future gaming needs or donate to charity or whatever, your call but between the two I suggest ssd. SandForce based SSDs like Corsair F-series and OCZ Agility 2 looks nice but take a look at kingston ssdnow-v 64GB. Its £50 cheaper here where I live than the F series or agility 2. Good luck

 

[seanny]

wow,that is a tough choice considering you do not want on board sound and rightfully sn board sound on your Asus P6x58 Premium is good but not compaired to a dedicated sound card,especially a nice one that has 3-d sound feature.I currently want to upgrade to a better sound card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132010

 

[shineon2010]

SSD.

 

[ajcroteau]

Your comparing Apples & Oranges...

I guess the real question is do you want a more performant computer or one that sounds better...

 

[RetiredChief]

Your choice, But on SSDs
- skip on kingston ssdnow-v Has very poor 4 K random read/write performance.
- On Gskill Make that the Pheonix Pro, Not the Non-pro. Pheonix pro same-same as corsar Force
- Vortex-2 also a good choice.

However I'd wait about a Month on SSDs. Currently the C300 is the only avail Sata 6 SSD, Others should be out soon. Also the Sata 6 versions will probably occupy the same price range as the current Sata II models, driving the cost of Sata II down. Your diff between a sata 6 and a good sata II - Not much. Somewhat like comparing two racecars. One beats the other by a sec, More about bragging rights.

 

[Newf]

I notice a substantial speed improvement since installing a SSD. I use it as a boot/OS drive with frequently used programs loaded on it as well.
The change reminds me of the speed bump I get when building a new box. It's that good.
$240 gets you a fast 120GB drive.
OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G
A sound card is good. An SSD is awesome.

 

[wolfram23]

Well I have both, AuzenTech Bravura 7.1 sound card and just recently an Intel X25M 80gb SSD. I'd say the SSD is great for windows performance. I have iTunes, Opera, and other apps installed on it. However, when it comes to gaming, you won't see a difference unless the games are installed on the SSD. I put Crysis Warhead on my SSD briefly and certainly noticed it loaded faster than my RAID 0 HDDs, but in game there wasn't much difference. SC2, same deal. Faster loads, but that's about it. An SSD is very nice and makes the system "snappy" but for gaming, specifically, it doesn't add a lot to the experience.

As for a sound card, it depends on what you're outputting to. I noticed that over my "Realtek High def audio" onboard my Asus P7P55D Pro mobo, the Bravura was a lot more crisp sounding. With 7.1 surroud speakers, even tho they're just Logitech X540s with older Altec Lansing 2.1 for front left/right, the sound is very loud and accurate. However, I think that the biggest benefit for the sound card came when I just bought a pair of Sennheiser PC 350 headphones. These bad boys have 150ohm resistance, and the Bravura can handle up to 600ohm, so they sound absolutely brilliant. The positional audio is bang on - which is amazing, considering they are stereo speakers. I mean you can hear front, back, sides, even above and below.

So, basically, I'd say get a sound card if you have a good set of headphones or speakers that can be pushed, but an SSD is also a nice improvement for the system overall. If you can get maybe a 120gb Corsair Force or Mushkin Callisto Deluxe (among others) then you'd have plenty of room for a bunch of games on the SSD as well. Currently my 80GB SSD, with windows 7 64bit, iTunes, Opera, Photoshop 5, and some other apps plus Starcraft 2, it has around 40gb available, so I can easily stick another 3 or 4 modern games on there.

 

[adampower]

You're joking right? Get the SSD so you don't have to listen to the bloody disk spinning up, down, and just making noise.

The nicest thing about the dedicated sound card is that it takes the load off your mobo. One day you will buy a good sound card. When you do, close your eyes and get a friend to enable and disable it. Listen for the difference.

Now, open your eyes and enjoy the SSD.