If I had written this opinion last week it would have been completely different.

I had replaced my old faithful AWE 32 with this wonderful, snazzy sound card from Turtle Beach! thats right, the people who make good sound cards. I had found installation a breeze and was enjoying sounds that should cost more than the £50 I had paid for the card.

That was then.. Now, after upgrading my old AMD K6/2 to a Duron I have found a different story. I have spent most of this weekend upgrading my PC, well that isn't entirely true. It took a couple of hours to upgrade the PC and most of the weekend pulling my hair out getting this damn card working (with reduced functionality - no dos emulation so no dos based games).

The final straw for me is that Turtle beach admit on their website that this card has compatibility problems with AMD chips. Well thank you very much Turtle Beach, if this is such a problem for AMD owners why not put it on the box.

It is such a shame as I would have loved to give this card such a good write up. But unless you use Intel processors or something changes dramatically leave well alone.

*Update* I have got this card working well under 98 (sounds very good in Starlancer) but so far I cannot get any compatibility or reliability under Windows 2000, Windows ME or Linux (SUSE 6.4).

Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): £49.99