Sound card/Performance

Hi folks,

I currently am running a Pentium IV 1.93 gHZ machine, overclocked to 2.5 gHZ. I have 512 mb of PC800 RDRAM, a Geforce3 64mb card (VisionTek) and an old Soundblaster Live XGamer sound card.

Upgrading to the video card I WANT is out for the present time, until after the weeding and honeymoon are taken care of. But what I am wondering is this:

Would I see a performance increase from upgrading to one of the newer sound cards, like an Audigy2 or a new Hercules card? I just have a feeling this old Live! card might be dragging my system down. Would a new card use fewer system resources?

My motherboard also has an AC97 chipset on it, which I have disabled. I thought the SB Live! probably used less CPU time. And the other option I have would be to use the USB connection on the Digital Sound System ... but I think that's the most CPU-intensive option of all.

I don't have anything special in the way of speakers right now ... just an old Microsoft Digital Sound System. They were made by Phillips, pump 80 watts and still sound really good. I don't have any place to put surround satellites anyway.

So, what would y'all recommend?

Thanks,

I really believe that the best improvement you are going to see is with the video card upgrade. I don't think the switch in soundcard will amount to much of a game. Very minimal fps gain in most circumstances unless you are having soundcard specific problems.

With your current system, I'm not sure going over a GF4 at this time will do you any great amount of good. Just a thought, but if you took the $50 - $75 or so for that soundcard upgrade and threw another $50 at it you could get a good 128MB Ti4200 and overclock it to near or at 4600 levels - especially if you get a Gainward with faster DDR memory, etc. You would benefit a great deal more by doing that.

Thanks for the advice, Hylander. I now plan to buy a Gainward TI-4800 128mb (I have found them on the web for $180). Gotta sneak that one on the credit card and past the Minister of Finance in our household regime.

I started having problems with my sound in Splinter Cell turning into a screeching, distorted burst of static this week .... so I went and picked up an Audigy2. The difference between this and the SB Live in terms of sound quality is just amazing ... even with my speakers connected via a stereo jack. It did improve gamer performance a bit, too.

Thanks,
John

Too late on the post since you picked up a audigy 2 card, which I recommend. I believe you should spend the extra cash on the lastest stuff since you usually bring it into the next system upgrade with you. I too just upgraded to the audigy 2 card and I'm very pleased with the sound and performance. Also just put a ATI 9700 pro in which has made a huge improvement also. Your ready for 6.1 speakers now....

I highly recommend the 6.1 I have the creative inspire 6.1 6600 series and it is incredible. Well worth the $100.

Interesting article:

http://www17.tomshardware.com/game/20030405/index.html

The interesting part is I have the Nforce2 Chip on board and I still went out and brought a Audigy2 Card. I still think it sounds better and is compatable with more games. If only I could use both at the same time.. Oh well. 12.2 sound!

I noticed a framerate increase when I replaced my SB Live Value with the Audigy 2. It did make a difference of several fps. And now I can run EAX with minimal impact on my framerate as well.

Quote:

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Originally posted by [AK?]Rocks
The interesting part is I have the Nforce2 Chip on board and I still went out and brought a Audigy2 Card. I still think it sounds better and is compatable with more games. If only I could use both at the same time.. Oh well. 12.2 sound!

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You should check if the Mobo using the nforce audio or seperate audio. I think quite a few nforce mobo's use seperate, lower quality, audio.