Used to Like it, not compatible with my Athlon Motherboard!
Written: Jan 09 '00 (Updated Feb 27 '01)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Good sound quality, low CPU usage
Cons: Doesn't work with my Athlon Gigabyte 7IX motherboard, no more driver updates.
The Bottom Line: Don't buy it unless you can get it for less than $15. This is another Diamond Product that has lost support.
|
|
|
| richlt's Full Review: Diamond Monster Sound MX200 PCI |
The MX200 is acceptable for a gamer or musician. I have had mine for about a year and a half, and spent about $150 for it at the time when it first came out. It is a PCI card and has Aureal A3d sound that resides in the hardware of the card. This is good because, like the original Monster Sound, your CPU does not get burdened with processing some of the audio activity. However the A3D 1.0 format has been replaced with the 2.0 version which adds more realism, effects, etc. This card still plays games fine, it just doesn't include the newer features.
I like the 2 audio outputs so I can hook up for speakers and play A3d enabled games with maximum envelopment. With supported games the sound wraps around you, front and rear! The audio inputs also performed well for some recording I do of songs I write.
The included software was some games which are now outdated. If you can find this card now, it is around $40 and is probably OEM version, which means it probably does not include the games-no loss. Outlaws is pretty outdated now anyway!
I am writing this opinion because I cannot recommend this card anymore. Why? I just upgraded to an AMD Athlon with a Gigabyte 7IX motherboard, and the card will not work with it at all. When I was able to correct an IRQ conflict, the card still crashed my computer while grinding it to a slow, crawling, halt! Since removing the MX200 from my system I am not having any problems.
I would not be bothered by this as much if it was not on AMD's 'compatible' list. Upon checking http://www.diamondmm.com for new drivers or support, I found they dropped the reference to the MX200 on their pages! So I replaced the MX200 with a cheap Vortex 2 card and it worked fine!
So now, as an audio enthusiast, I am going to purchase a Turtle Beach Quadzilla to replace it!
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 40
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
richlt
|
|
Member: Richard Thomsen
Reviews written: 50
Trusted by: 11 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.