New soundcard or add another 2GB G.Skill RAM?

[pinoy3000]

Okay not sure what to do hehe.

I know that if i dont have the stupid drivers for my onboard soundcard vista will boot up way way way way way 100x faster. But not sure what to do hehe. I know that a dedicated sound card is cheap but the problem i have is that none of them has the Optical Output the Toslink cable one.

Most of them have a 3.5mm optical output but where can i get a 3.5mm to toslink cable so i can use my 5.1 system with optical input? Radio shack doesnt have it..... who else would lolz. dont want to order online ;(

Or i can get an extra set of 2gb G.Skill RAM which is right now is $150.00!!! I bought mine for only $114.00 when i made my build. Stupid laws of supply and demand!

Edit: Oh wow this is what im looking for...

Newegg.com - Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio VARPAK 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Express Interface Sound Card - OEM

but has bad reviews

 

[TRDCorolla1]

You've already got 2GB of RAM already, so get the soundcard. The X-Fi is suppose to be Creative's top of the line chipset. Don't know how it could be that bad. I would get it, regardless.

 

[san21893]

Honestly, you're using vista and it's an incredible memory hog, go for the RAM, but also wait for some price fluctuation. And how are you so sure you're sound card's drivers won't kill you're boot?

 

[peterhuang913]

Newegg.com - Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Interface Sound Card - Retail

 

[pinoy3000]

Honestly, you're using vista and it's an incredible memory hog, go for the RAM, but also wait for some price fluctuation. And how are you so sure you're sound card's drivers won't kill you're boot?

True hehe ..

But with Vista's Own HD Driver it only took 10 passes, with ASUS' driver it took 16 passes. But Vista's HD Driver saux. I cant the front audio and the mobo audio at the same time. With ASUS' i can use both at the same time but not the Optical and the Front + Back Audio at the same time I have to select the SPDIF sound as default to use the Optical or Coaxial Sounds.

 

[TRDCorolla1]

I don't know how significant 4gigs of RAM would do for Vista unless you're running some really intense software. I've got 2GB on my laptop running Vista Home Premium and it's just as fast as when I was running XP.

I don't think soundcard has anything to do with boot time honestly. Maybe the software that's installed with the soundcard might slow it down a bit, but you don't have to have those installed. Just the main drivers. Even if there is a delay, it's insignificant.

 

[pinoy3000]

Im satisfied with my sound though there are times when i boot up, and when windows fully loads, i get a static sound whever i use cpu %age. thats including the litliest things like changing windows, scrolling up and down, click and what not. This sound is supposed to happen when cpu is at load and since the onboard sound is using the cpu, the static sound is created as well not sure. But i never had such issue with my laptop and onboard sound

 

[san21893]

It's not worth getting a card for a faster boot time. You'll be taking a large risk as the drivers could still suck. But I'm surprised, with my Gigabyte HD audio driver running I barely make 6 passes. Are you sure that's the only thing slowing your boot down?

 

[TRDCorolla1]

It never hurt to have more RAM. 4GB, wow, seems like a lot. I'll bet you don't even need to swap off the hard drive anymore with that much RAM.

 

[peterhuang913]

It never hurt to have more RAM. 4GB, wow, seems like a lot. I'll bet you don't even need to swap off the hard drive anymore with that much RAM.

64mb was alot back then. Nothing is ever too much.