[[H]ardwareNick]

for me in australia, the revo is 100 dollars more expensive than the av710 and the prodigy is even costlier than the revo. Of the three im guessing that sound quality is practically negligible so ill have to decide on pricing and gaming support. Are the two cards, revo and prodigy worth that much more than the av710 and also which is better for gaming ?

I listen to music a hell of alot but i also game a fair bit so i do care about the gaming aspect of these cards

thanks
Nick

 

[breez]

Considering they all use Envy24 chipset it shouldn't be much different, but then again drivers may make some difference. Relatively high CPU usage is guaranteed with any of them (Envy24 offers no HW acceleration).

 

[aug1516]

I believe they would all compare about the same when it comes to CPU utilization. I prefer the Revo's drivers over the Chaintech's and Prodigy's when it comes to features and ease of use. If you will just be doing some 2 channel speaker/headphone gaming then pick up the Chaintech and save some money. If you have more than 2 channels then the Revo or Prodigy would be a better choice.

 

[fguo79]

Actually, I remember read from several reviews that Prodigy 7.1 has better performance in games for its driver. As for music listening, I don't think there will much difference among those 3 cards.

 

[Glassman]

performance changes with every Sensaura driver update.. there should be no difference between Revo and Prodigy.. Chaintech using reference VIA drivers uses something else then Sensaura for gaming, it's performance might be different..

 

[richx]

I think Audiotrak updates their drivers alot more often than M-Audio, so they usually have more updated Sensaura libraries - that probably will come to an end since Creative bought Sensaura. AV-710 will be the worst of the lot then eh?

 

[Stephonovich]

I use the AV-710 for gaming when I don't feel like sharing the glorious sounds of gaming with the rest of the world, and I have no problems with everything cranked up. (XP 2000+, 512MB RAM, Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB) The two most recent games I've used with it are Need For Speed: Underground, and Unreal Tournament 2004. Granted, in UT2K4 I can't have all the pretty EAX effects, but it still has basic reverb and such. And positioning is spot-on. I love running around and being able to hear exactly where people are.

(-:Stephonovich