[Netherwind]

I plan to buy a soundcard to replace the horrible whining onboard on my P6T deluxe.

I had it narrowed down to the X-Fi Forte, but after realizing that the EAX support really doesn't mean much anymore.. I opened my eyes to a few possibilites:

Asus Xonar D2X
HT OMEGA Claro Halo
Auzentech X-Fi Forte

Any opinions which would be overall be better for gaming+music? Does being an X-Fi chip really mean that much for gaming?

I'll be running either SR225i's or MS1i's through the SC.

 

[FatMom]

x-fi means nothing more than eax and you said it, its dead. get the claro halo.

The essence STX would be a good choice as long as you dont enable that emulation crap.

 

[Netherwind]

Okay, will the claro have no lag or anything with my guitar either? And does it have a mic preamp like the essence and forte? Probably should have included the Essence STX as an option.

 

[Toby M]

One thing the X-fi has gaming-wise is a simulated 3D mode for headphones. I like it but some don't. It's for games only, no good for music. I'm not sure if other cards have a similar feature now but when I bought mine they didn't.

EAX isn't a big deal for modern games but if you have older games you still play it may be worth considering.

 

[Netherwind]

The other cards have dolby headphone technology for games and movies.

 

[Rhinosaur]

I agree with Toby M on this one. The only thing I really use with my X-fi is CMSS (the headphone effect Toby was talking about), as it seems to improve my A900s whenever I play games. I don't use the crystallizer, and as said, EAX isn't hugely popular any more.

Don't really know anything about the cards you've listed, but I figured I'd chime in with my X-fi experiences.

 

[Toby M]

Interesting. Found some impressions of Dolby HP vs CMSS 3D here:
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f46/do...stions-394289/

 

[ROBSCIX]

There is more to the X-fi Forte, then just EAX, the card also supports OpenAL through hardware which is still going strong. The card is marketed as a gaming card but it is still great for music.

 

[genclaymore]

I would say the STX, the GX mode does more then just emulate EAX 5, it also whats gives you back surround sound in vista/7. IF your using a 5.1/7.1 surround sound system.

Tho I keep it on as I tend to use 5.1 speaker config in windows and games and then Dolby headphone in Games .

 

[Netherwind]

I have no speakers whatsoever except the crap ones in my monitor so I will not use any form of speakers ever, my room is also far too small to accommodate a 5.1 or 7.1 speaker system. Rob made a comment about the OpenAL through hardware... Will the little bit of XRAM/Hardware accel make that much of a difference to put it over the halo/essence?

 

[Toby M]

I don't think there's any compelling performance reason to use a sound card, XRAM included. I've seen some benchmarks show you get something like 1-2% FPS increase in some games, but you'd do a lot better by overclocking your CPU and GPU slightly. And I doubt you'd even get 1% if your CPU is fast.

 

[genclaymore]

Thats why I dont really care for H/W acceleration when it comes to sound cards, I have a Q6600 thats oced etc and I have no reason to even worry about hardware acceleration I felt the same when I had a dual core cpu. To me it nothing because of the speeds of today cpus.

People still throw a fit for not or wanting it having it.

 

[Netherwind]

I have an i7 920 so that's even less of an incentive to use H/W accel over anything else based on info seen here.. so therefore.. my choices seem to still be:

The HT Omega Claro Halo
and the Asus Xonar Essence STX

 

[genclaymore]

I Would say go for the STX if you can.

 

[willykatie]

I would go for STX.

I use D2X for movie, music and gaming and sound brilliant. You won't regret it as STX probably sound even more better than D2X