need sound card advice

[pii100]

want a good sound card for under 150 should i get the mx400 or sb live xgamer 5.1

[Shadow ÒÓ]

do you have a sound system capable of dolby 5.1?

If not, the SB Live is still a very popular card for about $40. I use it with a digital out which sounds excellent ni my Cambridge 5 speaker system.

Combnied price is about $150

[pii100]

yes have surround sound reciver that decodes dolby digital and dts i need pcm digital out or optical out to use it though

[Cory-Athlon Man]

I have the Santa Cruz card and like it alot. It was just $79.95 direct from Turtle Beach. It is a DSP enhanced 6 speaker sound card. It has 420MIPS of digital processing power. I highly recommend it. :)

[Pitspawn]

I bought a SBLive! Platinum because the bay drive is an essential for keyboard and recording equipment. I would have gone for a Yamaha XG sound card but the prices are steep and the soundcard is not good for games.

What I recommend is going for a SBLive! Value. Unless you want to pay $100 more just for a bay/remote and games get the Value version.

Oh yeah, just one warning about the SBLive! cards...

If you have an AMD, VIA Chipset and more than one hdd please hold your purchase! There are serious conflicts going on atm and Creative and VIA are working on a fix of some kind. These are some of the symptoms I've experienced from this bitch problem...

1...Occasional loss of cd-rom use from boot (IDE2).
2...Occasional loss of eject AND use from boot (IDE2).
3...Crackling sounds in games (This can really get annoying)
4...Overclocking problems (I cant go over 108fsb with a live for some reason)
5...Constant rebooting in windows loadup due to driver conflicts (Solved with updated drivers)
6...THE WORST OF ALL...IDE DATA CORRUPTION. I know now that it WASNT my hdd it was the live that caused IDE2 corruption. I lost my whole 17Gb C: drive and one partition of my 45Gb D:

If you dont believe what i have said look for the forums on the creative website and at viahardware website. There are hundreds of other people suffering too :)

[Door Knob]

The 5.1 X-Gammer does support the 6 speaker setup (can't rember the name for hte life of me now). If your a gammer this aint to bad a deal as it comes with some good titles.

[pii100]

thnx for input will look in to xgamer and santa cruze

[DIG]

Pitspawn (May 03, 2001 06:13 p.m.):
I bought a SBLive! Platinum because the bay drive is an essential for keyboard and recording equipment. I would have gone for a Yamaha XG sound card but the prices are steep and the soundcard is not good for games.

What I recommend is going for a SBLive! Value. Unless you want to pay $100 more just for a bay/remote and games get the Value version.

Oh yeah, just one warning about the SBLive! cards...

If you have an AMD, VIA Chipset and more than one hdd please hold your purchase! There are serious conflicts going on atm and Creative and VIA are working on a fix of some kind. These are some of the symptoms I've experienced from this bitch problem...

1...Occasional loss of cd-rom use from boot (IDE2).
2...Occasional loss of eject AND use from boot (IDE2).
3...Crackling sounds in games (This can really get annoying)
4...Overclocking problems (I cant go over 108fsb with a live for some reason)
5...Constant rebooting in windows loadup due to driver conflicts (Solved with updated drivers)
6...THE WORST OF ALL...IDE DATA CORRUPTION. I know now that it WASNT my hdd it was the live that caused IDE2 corruption. I lost my whole 17Gb C: drive and one partition of my 45Gb D:

If you dont believe what i have said look for the forums on the creative website and at viahardware website. There are hundreds of other people suffering too :)


You don't have to hold-off any longer. Read my reply to the "Sound card compatability with MSI m/b" post on May 7th.