Hey guys, Im looking for a good reliable budget soundcard. Preferably something good for gaming, music, and movies. I want to stay in the range of under $100. Its going to be used mostly for 2 stereo speakers, but 5.1 in the future, so something with that capability would be nice.
the best sound cards(my opinion) are the M-AUDIO revolution genre, they come in a 5.1 and 7.1 version, the 7.1 is around $70 and sounds much better then any lame creative card -tripplite
The sound quality of creative cards is perfectly adequate, unless you use onboard audio the sound quality really comes down to the speakers/headphones you use or your equaliser settings. The Audigy SE PCI is very cheap and offers very good sound quality. Just beware that these are really designed with windows XP in mind.
If capturing streaming audio is something you want to do, stay away from the M-Audio. Some programs will only work up to 16 bit audio, and the M-Audio is limited to 24 bit. All of the Creative Audigy cards are 24 bit, but they can capture as 16 bit. I would recommend Creative over M-Audio.
huh?? this isn't the first time you guys have pushed the M-audio overboard LOL......what about those turtle beach cards? never really used one......
Although their aftersales support is a joke, if you hang on to the CD, Creative's sound cards are very good, especially the cheap ones, as they offer sound quality to the same standard as the more expensive ones. The Audigy SE is only something like thirty dollars, so why not use that?
