Best possible sound card

[StealthTools]

I am trying to find the best possible sound card for my new computer.

I am running windows Vista 64b Ultimate

I play many games, but I listen to music most of the time I am on a computer. Mostly classic rock, metal, and guitar.

I switched from on board to the x-fi x-treme gamer card on my old build (which is sold) and it was a night and day difference.

I am now looking between the two cards as they seem to be the top ones.

ASUS Xonar D2/PM Ultra Fidelity 7.1

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional

Has anyone had first hand experience with these sound cards?

Here is a source I found: PC Sound Cards

and here is a quote I found:

"for gaming its a one horse race- x-fi
even the best of the rest- asus and razer cards- are a very distant 2nd in gaming 3d audio. the c-media chips on those cards sound absoultely horrible in newer eax games when 3d audio is enabled. they still use 6 year old 3d algorithms developed by Sensaura b4 it was swallowed by creative labs
the new asus cards have a special driver that 'tricks' games into thinking that eax5 hardware is present but still gives out eax2 effects. pathetic.
real competition is needed and welcome"

What I get out of my research so far is that if I am going to do any gaming at all I need the Creative card and if music is my thing then I need to get the ASUS card...

I am a complete audiophile

Cost is no issue...

EDIT: I have a Klipsch/THX 3 speaker setup.. and am going to get a wicked awesome headset whenever I can get around to looking for one..

 

[rayzolight]

I have the HT Omega Claro+ 7.1 and I love it

If you are an audiophile, you'll probably appreciate this card's specs

 

[gurusan]

Have you considered a DAC instead? I am using my onboard sound to output a pure digital bitstream to my DAC and it sounds wonderful. In my opinion significantly better than the XFI I had before, and I modded the XFI as well with a better power filter cap and LM4652 opamp.

Also do you have speakers or headphones or what?

 

[saltynay]

I use the asus xonar D2X and would reccomend it to anyone its extremely good the Auzentech prelude is also rated very highly it was a toss up between the two for me.
KustomPCs.co.uk - AuzenTech X-FI Prelude 7.1
I wouldn't use a real creative card they are suppose to be sloppy with support and driver conflicts on vista were dime a doaen when I was researching my card (2 months ago)

 

[StealthTools]

I guess i could go with the X-FI Prelude 7.1 for the EAX support for gaming, although I wonder what difference this would make vs the regular X-FI XTreme Gamer.

 

[Apokalipse]

I'm quite happy with my Xonar D2X. I moved from an X-Fi XtremeMusic (which I modified, with LME49720 opamps and a better power filtering capacitor)
The sound is cleaner, the drivers are better, and it's PCI-E

It's also still pretty good for games

 

[keygen]

Creative Audigy 5.1 seems to be my fix.

 

[EricB]

presonus firebox. it the best card that I've ever heard. it just have compatibility issues with media center

 

[Akubane]

I'd recommend the Asus xonar D2X. Creative and anything using creatives tech is garbage on vista x64 systems. I've had 3 seperate creative cards and all 3 combined don't match the D2X. XD

 

[EricB]

I'd recommend the Asus xonar D2X. Creative and anything using creatives tech is garbage on vista x64 systems. I've had 3 seperate creative cards and all 3 combined don't match the D2X. XD

x64 and good soundcard just don't go together. I just built me a nice media server with a 4 quad processor with 6 gigs of ram and I hate the Bs that I go though to hear music through my stereo system as oppose to my hdtv. it should play both at once like xp does