Need feedback on choice of 2 sound cards

[Cisco Kid]

I have the Asus A8V deluxe, currently using onboard sound out to my Altec Lansing CN251 5.1 speakers (yes I realize there are better pc speakers and I will not be hooking the pc to my stereo receiver)

I want a dedicated card for better 5.1. Of the 2 below which would be better. I can get the Herc Fortissimmo II used at $19 US and the CHAINTECH AV-710 PCI for about $27 brand new with a free optical cable.

I probably play games more so than watching movies or listening to music on the system, so is the Herc the better card, I realize it is older so I am assuming it will not be better even for gaming is that correct? Everything I read about the AV-710 says it to be very good comparable to M-Audio for music and movies and okay for gaming but at a stellar cheap price.

Would Turtle Beach Santa Cruz used be a good choice as well for an all rounded card?. I want to spend under $30 US and I am in canada so I do not want to order and have not seen one used yet on forums and I would like to get the card today

Thanks

Cisco Kid

[Maxvla]

i love my av710. it works great in games as well.

i'm not up on hercules cards so i can't offer a counterpoint.

[Azzkiller]

Another vote for the Chaintech av710

[Cisco Kid]

thanks for the feedback , looks as though I will go with the Chaintech card. I realize there is also Audigy but you know what I do not want to got there as it is AC97 based with some optimizations.

I imagine the Chaintech has to be better than my onboard AC97 solution and it should provided decent gaming performance as well.

Maxvia sounds like you are happy with it for your gasming needs I will prolly just follow as I know you like to play around with techy stuff and have probably sampled many sound cards

CK

[zabomb4163]

the chaintech uses the Envy 24-HT-S chipset. (the M-audio revolution and Audiotrak prodigy use the Envy 24HT chipset.)

[Cisco Kid]

the chaintech uses the Envy 24-HT-S chipset. (the M-audio revolution and Audiotrak prodigy use the Envy 24HT chipset.)

thanks for the info , anyways for the price I bought this card, 33 bux incl tax in canada, can not get better for the price and quality of sound it will provide me

ck

[Ad Rock]

Hey Cisco would you like to let me know where you got that card for that price? Thanks for helping a fellow Canadian out.

[Cisco Kid]

Hey Cisco would you like to let me know where you got that card for that price? Thanks for helping a fellow Canadian out.


www.ncix.com it was on sale in last week flier which ended yesterday. check their flier that comes out this week on Thursday I am sure they will run it again

Good luck

ck

[Ad Rock]

Alright I will have to keep checking the weekly fliers then. I have on-board right now and want an improvement over the soundstorm. I have a Audigy 2 ZS pro sitting here but I think I will just try to sell it.

[james__bean]

I guess you already bought the card, but I should probably still point out that the AV-710 sounds good with music because you can run it in "high-res" mode. What this does is runs the audio in 2-channel mode through some nicer DACS on the card. If you were going to be running a 5.1 setup then this card wouldn't be ideal since the other dacs on the card aren't as good. You may be better off with something like the Prodigy, but that card is considerably more expensive. You could always try flashing the card to a Prodigy and installing the Prodigy drivers. (Its possible since they use the same chipset) But when you do this you can only use the digital output and its definitely not guaranteed to work. I actually did this without making a backup and the flash didn't work for me. It ultimately didn't matter though since i was planning on buying a better soundcard anyways.

[SK8]

Another vote for the Chaintech av710
ditto

[Cisco Kid]

I bought it based on price just can not beat it and it is better than my onboard sound.

CK

[breez]

Chaintech is no special for analog multichannel. Mediore AC97 codec is used for that. Although it's not worse than the competition in the price class.