ONboard Sound card replacement

[darren68uk]

ok currently have an alienware Area 51 R2 that has Creative Sound Core 3D onbaord card
looking for a decent upgrade,
looking at spending a MaX £50 (i know tight asss)
I have seen some reviews on amazon of the asus boards and not favourable,
seen this, would it be a decent enough upgrade for me
Creative OEM PCI-E Sound Blaster Z Soundcard
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Creative-PC...p/B009S1NTUU/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8

p.s it will mainly be for gaming, and the odd movie, i currently have the Corsair SP2500 speakers

 

[EndlessWaves]

What do you want from the upgrade?

 

[darren68uk]

hmmm good question! when i got my SP2500's it was advised to get a dedicated card for them, at the time i felt what i had might be adequate, however i didnt feel i was able to feel the power from the speakers i should get, and since then my sound completely went, after removing the creative drivers software and going back to generic drivers the sound returned,

without wanting to mess around too much to reinstall everything (after several re installs due to windows 10 a story for another timer) im looking for a dedicated card, and have always been a firm believer in dedicated cards being better over on-board ones,. but obviously money is always an issue and other things always took precedence,, but now is time to actually get one

 

[EndlessWaves]

So you're interested in DAC quality and not the extra features or outputs a sound card might provide? It's worth looking at USB DACs as well in that case.

I've got the predecessor to the one you're considering, the X-fi Titanium, and it's a perfectly decent sound card. I bought it for the headphone visualisation (and now extinct EAX support) so my perceptions of it aren't solely based on the quality improvement over onboard. The onboard of a temporary dell SFF system I'm using now occasionally struggles to match it via my low impedance headphones but I haven't noticed a huge difference.

 

[darren68uk]

oh ok thanks for your help, . not wanting to go down the usb root if i can help it, trying to keep clutter to a minimum as my soon to arrive X52 pro flight stick will no doubt swamp whats left of my office space,!

think i might just pull the plug on the Sound Blaster Z as have some amazon vouchers to redeem!

 

[sanu999]

Hi I am also looking to buy a sound card / graphics card with hdmi sound out... Need Help
My PC is dell optiplex sff 3020 (Intel i3). I want to connect the PC to my av receiver (ONKYO TX-NR 646 HDMI PC SLOT) via hdmi and another hdmi connection to My Sony W829 TV

Dell OptiPlex 3020 | Dell OptiPlex 3020-Small Form Factor Owners Manual

 

[EndlessWaves]

It's cheaper to buy a video card if you want another HDMI out.

 

[sanu999]

is all the video cards output sound through hdmi?

 

[EndlessWaves]

is all the video cards output sound through hdmi?

I believe all the AMD and nVidia models currently in production do so.

 

[sanu999]

Any recommendations mate, that my psu can handle?

 

[Mystogan]

Any recommendations mate, that my psu can handle?

Literally any cheap card with HDMI will suffice such as the GT210, GT610, HD5450, HD 6450 to name a few. Just make sure it includes a low profile bracket in the box otherwise it won't fit your system. If you plan on decoding 4k, just make sure its HDMI 1.4a or above.

 

[Mystogan]

In regards to the OP, for sound-cards either go high end or don't bother at all, usually either the Creative Sound Blaster ZxR or Asus Xonar Essence STX II. This is because most of the time the on-board audio is adequate. You only pick a better sound-card for their feature set such as virtual surround sound.

Now if sound quality matters, it is recommended to use an external DAC and AMP. For your budget it's probably the FiiO E10k that suits you the most. If you get save some money up down the line you can afford to get a Schiit stack ~£280, which would be the best DAC and AMP combo for most home users out there. After that, it's all very subjective, and in general will cost a lot of money. Ah such is the pain for good audio quality.

 

[darren68uk]

In regards to the OP, for sound-cards either go high end or don't bother at all, usually either the Creative Sound Blaster ZxR or Asus Xonar Essence STX II. This is because most of the time the on-board audio is adequate. You only pick a better sound-card for their feature set such as virtual surround sound.

Now if sound quality matters, it is recommended to use an external DAC and AMP. For your budget it's probably the FiiO E10k that suits you the most. If you get save some money up down the line you can afford to get a Schiit stack ~£280, which would be the best DAC and AMP combo for most home users out there. After that, it's all very subjective, and in general will cost a lot of money. Ah such is the pain for good audio quality.

thanks for the advice, I went with the creative sound blaster Z in the end, and it may well be the placebo effect but it sounds great to me, can def feel that bit etc grunt from my speakers so happy days, and as i previously stated my onboard card was playing up so any external card would have been better,

thanks again