Sound Card

[Dragon]

It's time to buy a sound card and I'm looking for advice on which one to purchase.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2687630&CatId=107

or

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2687632&CatId=107

Is second one worth the extra $

[MrRiplEy[H]]

It's time to buy a sound card and I'm looking for advice on which one to purchase.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2687630&CatId=107

or

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2687632&CatId=107

Is second one worth the extra $

Most likely you won't notice any difference between them. Crystalizer for example is a huge scam, all it does is add distortion and bend the frequency response.

[Fulmar]

IIRC, a year+ ago, Creative changed their naming scheme for the "Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme Audio."  It's actually not an X-Fi sound card and is of older generation chipset.

I don't feel the Crystalizer is a scam.  For some of my older lower bitrate music collection, I think it adds a nice tough to them.  But it also depends on the song/style of music.  Sometimes it makes it sound like bellybutton giving it too much bass or messed with the mid-range.  Though, I didn't buy the card for this feature.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

IIRC, a year+ ago, Creative changed their naming scheme for the "Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme Audio."  It's actually not an X-Fi sound card and is of older generation chipset.

I don't feel the Crystalizer is a scam.  For some of my older lower bitrate music collection, I think it adds a nice tough to them.  But it also depends on the song/style of music.  Sometimes it makes it sound like bellybutton giving it too much bass or messed with the mid-range.  Though, I didn't buy the card for this feature.

For anyone interested in hifi crystalizer is 100% scam. Creative claims it takes recordings above studio level rofl. All it does is equalize and distort the sound.

[BaldEagl]

I just looked at the tech specs on both of these on the Creative site.  Unfortunately, they omit most of them for the Extreme Music card (which probably tells you someting in itself).  Where they do have comparable specs the X-Fi Gamer is ever so slightly better in terms of THD and S/N ratio.

The biggest difference I would think is that the X-Fi Gamer has it's own RAM whereas I don't believe the X-Fi Music does, so the Gamer will take more of the load off your system than the Music version. 

I haven't tried the Extreme Music version but I've got the Extreme Gamer Fatality Pro running a set of 75 watt Klipsch Pro Media 2.1's and it sounds great.

Yeah, Crystilizer is one of those things you'll never use if you've got good speakers.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

I recently bought Extreme Audio PCI-E for toejams and giggles to see if it made any difference compared to the built in audio. Performance wise I can't tell (the machine runs W7 now) and soundwise it's impossible to say since the audio for that machine is $30 creative soapboxes. Too lazy to connect headphones to do a real comparison.

[Fulmar]

I can't stand any of the sound qualities from all the onboard audio I've heard in my experience.  AC '97, Realtek, etc etc.  All horrible subpar IMO.  I used an original SB Audigy for 5 years or so and when I moved to the X-FI, i was questioning if I would hear any difference in quality.  I was pleasantly surprised when I noticed a considerable improvement in music and game audio quality in the X-FI.  As for the XRAM/FPS boost, at the time I was playing BF2 when I made the sound card switch.  Maybe a couple FPS more than the original Audigy.  The environmental sounds were improved considerably.

[Getback]

I use the Asus xonar dx. It seems to work but I still wonder if I made the right choice. It did get good reviews though if you can believe them.

[expat]

Im using an Asus Zonar HDAV 1.3  , it was a pain to set  up as some of the software provided caused a lot of games to not work , but once i sorted that out  the sound quality is fantastic   

[Dragon]

Thanks guys.  I was leaning towards the $100 card.  I like the idea of the built in ram. 

[Fulmar]

It is kind of a shame that Creative still has such a threshold on the non-professional sound card market (i.e. sound recording etc).