I’m building a decent gaming PC for a friend (She’s paying for it). I don’t want her to spend too much. Performance benchmarks from X-bit Labs show that the Creative SoundBlaster XFi Platinum, despite its features, provides only a meager 7% improvement in display framerate and CPU benchmarks. Is it wise to invest $190 in it when the motherboard, Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 has an arguably good Realtek ALC888-DD audio that supports 32-bit HighDef audio and Dolby Digital. I’m ok to compromise the EAX 5.0.
Okay If you’re interested in the config.sys I planned , here it goes:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 processor
Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 board
PowerColor Radeon X1900XTX (Price slashed, improving Cost/Perf)
2x OCX 1024MB = 2GB
4x WD Caviar SATA (160G 72krpm 8MB buff)
A case of her choice
SMPS (Still lookin into a 600W)
Viewsonic VX9xx
Logitech wireless input
PowerColor Theatre 550 PCIe
Her own Bose speakers.
Of course its worth it, we all know how much integrated audio sucks (not all of us I see). But go for a X-Fi Xtreme Music, its atleast $100 cheaper, why pay for the Platinum features she may never or rarely use?
This system sounds good. However, I’ve tried both the X-bit Labs card that you mentioned and the Creative Labs Audigy SE. Now looking at the benchmark specs I was first impressed with the X-Bit, so I bought it and used it for about a week. ITo tell you the truth I was a bit disappointed in it considering the audio leveling and less than ample tweak points. So I decided to grab the Audigy, (newegg.com for $27.99) just to compare. And I’m tellin you now that I was completely blown away. This thing gave me absolute control over every single aspect of sound that came from my rig, And from this day I’ve not found a single card that can match it, without spending hundreds of dollars that is.
I haven’t tried it yet ,but I use creative audigy2 ZS platinum
if your going for a high end processor like E6700….u should probably go for ASUS P5N-E-SLI or intel D965RY instead of ur gigabyte if you want decent performance for games…..theres no use spending so much money on your sound card as these motherboards have inbuilt 5.1 sound cards