Great Sound for a great price
Written: Aug 14 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Amazing Sound, Easy to install, Built in Firewire port
Cons: Needs two slots from the case if you want the MIDI/Joystick port
The Bottom Line: This card delivers home-theater quality sound and I would recommend this for anyone looking to get a great computer and gaming experience
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| emedendorp's Full Review: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy Gamer Sound Car... |
When I purchased my computer it was only able to come with the SB Live!. This was a good sound card, but I wanted more. My wife tells me that I'm one of those people who are never happy with my computer. Well I guess you could have said that before, but not anymore. This card has very good sound (not a ton better then the SB Live! but has many more features). You can still hook the speakers that I purchased with this sound card (Inspire 5.1 5300) but I'm not sure how they sound with the other card as I never tried them out until I got them for this card. If you are looking to upgrade the sound, that is more going to go into your speakers then anything else. If you are looking to get more options and more voices in the sound then the upgrade is worth it. However, if you are someone who just listens to music with two little speakers that can't hardly rattle themselves let alone your house, then you should just stick with the sound card that you have in your computer. The price is kind of steep for people who have already spent thousands on their computers, but everything costs money for computers these days.
Installation:
This card was a piece of cake to install (of course I do this for a living :) ). However, if someone who knows how to open their case (well, trusts themselves more like it) should have no trouble installing this card. Really there is nothing to it. The directions are pretty good at telling you how to do it step by step, but I never read the directions (I was gonna do it Tim Allen style). I just figured I do this all the time so why take the time to read the directions unless I'm having problems. It really isn't much more then a surface job on the computer really. You simply open the cover on the case and find an empty PCI slot. All you have to do is insert the card in that slot and then place the screw in the provided spot alongside it so that you don't have to worry about it getting pushed out of place when you go to plug things into it.
I should probably tell you about my system a little bit. It's the Gateway 700X. This computer is only about 5 months old (like I said, I'm never happy....I upgraded to this card almost 1 month after purchasing the computer). It's a Pent. 4 2.0 GHz processor with just about all the goodies. I could go listing them all out, but I really don't want to bore you like that. You don't really need a system this powerful to get great use out of this card (It's just a bonus). You really only need to have a Pentium 266MHz or faster processor (of course this includes the AMD and Celeron processors also). You need to have a little chunk of RAM, but most modern systems come with at least this and that is 64 MB. If your computer has a processor capeable of keeping up with this sound card, then it most likely has what it needs with RAM requirements.
Sound:
This card has great sound. I purchased the Inspire 5.1 5300 sound speakers at the same time I purchased this sound card because that is one of the main reasons for my upgrade. I wanted to get the best sound that I could out of this system, and these speakers helped with just that. My computer is in Dolby Surround all the time, and when I watch a DVD, I get true Dolby Digital Surround sound. Like I said, it sounds great. I have almost gotten to the point of getting rid of my TV and my entertainment center because my computer just can do so much better (well, not better, but at least just as much (I do have a very high quality sound system for my entertainment center)). I take a lot of pride in how my systems and everything sound and this thing does some of the best sound that I have ever heard from it.
Games sound awsome. I can be playing a race game and hear people in whatever direction they are from where I am on the track. With shooting games, you can actually hear where people are shooting you from. There are all sorts of other stuff that this card has designed for games that make this very well worth the upgrade (with the right speaker system of course). There is only so much you can do with two speakers!
Software:
The software that is included with this sound card doesn't work with XP so if you have XP be prepared to download some patches. You have to install the software included with the card before you can install the updates, but it's really not that hard. You just install it like you normally would and ignore all the things that start popping up on you at the moment becuase the drivers don't work correctly with XP. You download the patch and run it, and it takes care of the rest. Overall it is a very painless process.
The games, I already had one of them and the other one wasn't really what I thought it would be, but hey they were included with the card so it doesn't really bother me. It isn't like I got stuck paying for the game by itself and feel like I lost money on it becuase it sucked!
The software for the card itself is really cool. I don't really like the PlayCenter (the jukebox type software) but I never really have liked it with any of the sound cards that I got. I just use MusicMatch or even WinAmp. At times I have even use the Media Player, but you can use whatever you like. You have all sorts of settings that you can set for this sound card. You can set it as if you were in a live studio or at a baseball stadium or things like that. It's really amazing what you can do with the software and what this sound card is capeable of. There is even stuff on there that will get rid of that hiss and pops in the sound. You can use this to clean up your MP3's that didn't really copy all that well. The possibilities are endless with this sound card (pretty much).
Problems:
Other then the software not working with XP I didn't have any problems getting my computer to recoginize this sound card, but I have heard from some other people that their motherboard doesn't support it. I'm not sure exactly which ones don't, but you might want to check into it if you are looking to get this card.
Closing:
Well, that is really all I have to say about this card. I hope this was a big help for you. In all, I would highly recommend this sound card if you are a big game player, or you like to watch movies on your computer. You will notice a very large difference in your computer and the way it sounds. I have even noticed a slight increase in speed with my computer after installing this card.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 99.99
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Epinions.com ID:
emedendorp
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Location: Holland, MI
Reviews written: 12
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
Truck driver w/ passion for electronics and computers
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