PC upgrading time for me too!

[Taeme]

Because a $400 6800 GT will still be worthwhile a year from now, while a $200 (probably ATI, since their low end stuff is better) card won't and I'll have to replace it with another $200 card - Which will probably just be the GT.

Why not just get the performance I want now and not have to replace it for two years instead of a year? That's my philosophy. Which is a word I can't spell, I'll have you know.


What else is good besides SB? No one ever recommends anything else.

[channel1]

I just have time to make a quickie bit of advice right now.

DON'T go nutz (i.e. spend lots) on ANY motherboard, video card or RAM right now. PCI Express is available NOW, and is poised to REPLACE AGP for video. Count on AGP being dead by this time next year, with the remaining AGP cards priced appropriately.

If you DO feel the need for speed, the current best-bang-for-the-bucks motherboard is the Asus P5AD2 Premium . Throw in your choice of ATI or nVidea PCI Express 16 video, and however much Dual-Channel DDR2 533 RAM your budget can stand.

-rcv-

[Nystul]

What else is good besides SB? No one ever recommends anything else.


I hesitate to recommend sound cards I've never heard (which would basically be all of them except SB Audigy 2), especially when sound quality is so subjective. Creative is the cart that pulls the horse when it comes to sound engines in gaming, and they focus on loading their cards with features like hardware acceleration for games, surround sound support, DVD-A playback, etc. So what it boils down to is features vs. sound quality, determining what features you need and then seeing if something other than the Creative cards can offer them. M-Audio's "Revolution" card used to be a popular alternative to the Audigy... it still has surround sound support and basic, software-emulated EAX for gaming, and many claim it has better sound quality than the Audigy. For really good music sound quality, some people are going with semi-professional soundcards from RME or E-Mu. But these aren't a good choice for everybody, because most of them only have 2 channel output, there is no EAX support, and I think some of the RME cards don't even have proper support for DirectSound (meaning you wouldn't get sound from games at all). Also, most of these recording-oriented cards use RCA or 1/4" left and right jacks for output, which means you can't plug headphones or typical computer speakers directly into them.

The bottom line is, as I think I said in the last post, invest in decent quality speakers and/or headphones before you dump a bunch of money on a soundcard, because cheap speakers will make any card sound like crap. If you go with multichannel computer speakers and plan on gaming more than you listen to music, then the Audigy line is the best choice. If you decide to use your computer as a juke box, the Audigy line may not be the best choice, but all of the cards that reportedly have better sound fidelity have other drawbacks that need to be taken into consideration.

[Wyrm]

Turtle Beach and Philips both have some pretty good sound cards out. id software actually used a Philips sound card at last years E3 booth to show off Doom 3 features. There's a Turtle Beach 7.1 card that rivals the Audigy 2 ZS as far as quality goes (if I remember the article I saw right) and is a bit less than the Audigy (roughly $77 vs the ~$85 for the low end ZS one). However, it doesn't hold a candle to the Platinum and Platinum Pro as far as features go, and doesn't come with any games like the Gamer does.

If you do want a SB card though, now is the time to get one, there's an online sale here, where you can get a mail in rebate on them for a really good deal (Platinum for 95 w/rebate, Platinum Pro for 137 w/rebate, or the others for 30-50 w/rebates).

Side note, if you're looking for information on just about any computer part, Tom's Hardware Guide has good reviews of just about everything.