New system (recommendations)

[knirfie]

ok, i'm getting a new system soon (finallly) , but i havent decided on teh sound card yet, do i stick with the onboard thing? get a creative? or what? I would like 5.1 sound.

Does anybody have any experience with the Terratec Aureal series?

edit: budget: €50-60 (if really necessary €70)

[az]

I love my Terratec 6fire 24/69, though it's probably too expensive for you. If you just do gaming, I'd get a creative.

AZ

[Jammrock]

Stick with the onboard until Echo Audio releases their firewire sound cards. It will sound worlds better than anything anyone else makes. Except MAYBE the M-Audio Revolution 7.1 ... which would be my #1 option if you must have an internal solution.

Of course, if you are an avid surround sound gamer, the M-Audio Revolution 7.1 doesn't perform that great since it can only do 2-channels in hardware. Or something like that.

Jammrock

[knirfie]

ok, i've got two configs for my new system, which one would you take?

                 system 1                            system 2


CPU          Pentium 4 2,4C                   AMD Athlon 64 3200+
Mobo         Abit IC7-G                       Asus K8V Deluxe  
Memory       2x 512mb Kingston 3700           1x 512mb Kingston 3700
HDD          160gb 7200.7 S-ATA               160gb 7200.7 S-ATA
DVD RW       Nec 1300A                        none (delayed)
DVD          Plextor PX-116-16x               Plextor PX-116-16x
Case         Chieftec Dragon midi (black)     Chieftec Dragon midi (black)
PSU          ZALMAN ZM400A-APF 400W           ZALMAN ZM400A-APF 400W
Cooling      Asetek KT12 watercooling         Asetek KT12 watercooling

recommendations for changes are always welcome and so are donations...


I'll be buying most of my stuff here: http://www.e-bug.de/

[UtwigMU]

In both cases I recommend stand alone soundcard.

TBSC, Hercules Fortissimo III/Digifire 7.1/GTXP (depends on the features you want)/M-Audio Revolution, Terratec Aureon, Terratec DMX6 Fire

The semi-pro cards are not as good at gaming as gaming cards, check price performance.

Everyone tells me to wait with DVD burner till end of year.

Anders, es sieht gut aus.

[dZeus]

Why a plextor for DVD device? I can understand it if you chose it as recorder... but as DVDROM drive? Get a lite-on instead.

If I had to chose from the above configurations, I would chose the P4, if only because it has 1024MB RAM and a DVDWriter. I just am hesistant about anything branded 'Abit'

[Jammrock]

Originally posted by UtwigMU
In both cases I recommend stand alone soundcard.

TBSC, Hercules Fortissimo III/Digifire 7.1/GTXP (depends on the features you want)/M-Audio Revolution, Terratec Aureon, Terratec DMX6 Fire

The semi-pro cards are not as good at gaming as gaming cards, check price performance.

Everyone tells me to wait with DVD burner till end of year.

Anders, es sieht gut aus.

The M-Audio Revolution 7.1 is a gamer card built by a pro audio company. Echo is doing the same thing. I have the Indigo laptop sound card and it is by far the best sound card I have EVER heard. I'm extatic over their upcoming firewire options.

I would go with the M-Audio Revolution 7.1 first, then the Creative Audigiy 2. If you can wait, the Echo firewire card will blow away everything if the quality of the Indigo is any indication.

As for which system? I'd say system 2, but that's mainly because I've been a big AMD fan for the past couple of year. You'll be happy with either system.

Jammrock

[Tjalfe]

How about the ASUS A7N8X Deluxe motherboard instead.. I find the onboard Nvidia sound to be quite good ( not AC97)
also I have now tried 4 Athlon 2500+'s and they all overclocked fine to 3200+ on stock cooling.. maybe I have been lucky.. but still worth concidering, giving you the cash for a DVD burner too

[az]

I wouldn't get an A64 just yet - they're too expensive for what they have to offer right now (as it is with all top-of-the-line models).

As a DVD-RW I'd get the new Plextor, it's much better than the NEC. And why would you want a second DVD drive on top of that?

Oh yes, and I think you can do both cheaper and quieter than a Zalman PSU.

AZ

[knirfie]

Originally posted by dZeus
Why a plextor for DVD device? I can understand it if you chose it as recorder... but as DVDROM drive? Get a lite-on instead.

It's the only black dvd drive they have, and the price isn't much higher then the lite-on

Originally posted by Jammrock
If you can wait, the Echo firewire card will blow away everything if the quality of the Indigo is any indication.

Jammrock

Waiting is no problem as long as it's not too long and the onboard audio isn't too bad. What price range would this be?

Originally posted by az
As a DVD-RW I'd get the new Plextor, it's much better than the NEC. And why would you want a second DVD drive on top of that?

Oh yes, and I think you can do both cheaper and quieter than a Zalman PSU.

AZ

What PSU would you recommend then (being quieter and cheaper)?

I'm considering waiting with the burner a few months, with 160gb of space i can store quite some stuff, and dual-layer or blue-ray sounds really interesting... so does 8x writing speed :P

[Admiral]

I would go for the P4 system for the extra ram, hyper-threading (half CPU usage on most apps) and dual channel bandwidth goodness (still higher, bandwidth wise, than the A64 single channel with CPU built-in memory controller).
Should compensate for the 64 bit that you probably won't be able to fully take advantage of for most of 2004.

Sound card, Audigy or Audigy 2 bulk if it's mostly a gaming system or Terratec DMX 6Fire LT for other stuff.
The only Aureons worth are the Sky 5.1 or Space 7.1, both based on the Envy24HT chipset, though they're close in price to the DMX 6Fire LT (which is a pure Envy24 chip).

edit: the M-Audio Revolution 7.1 also has a Envy24HT chip

[Indiana]

Originally posted by Jammrock
Stick with the onboard until Echo Audio releases their firewire sound cards. It will sound worlds better than anything anyone else makes. Except MAYBE the M-Audio Revolution 7.1 ... which would be my #1 option if you must have an internal solution.

Of course, if you are an avid surround sound gamer, the M-Audio Revolution 7.1 doesn't perform that great since it can only do 2-channels in hardware. Or something like that.

Jammrock

The M-Audio Revolution 7.1 is slightly inferior to the Terratec 6Fire 24/96 if you look at the used components: it uses the ENVY-HT instead of the "full" ENVY24 and has somewaht cheaper AKM ADCs on it. Most likely you won't be able to really hear the difference, though.

But then the M-Audio has a much more colorful mixer and bigger driver-archives, so it has to be better...

[Admiral]

Where the situation gets a bit cloudy is in gaming performance, as VIA decided to forego DirectSound and DirectSound 3D acceleration in the Envy24HT. This is stranger still because the original Envy24 did feature hardware acceleration. The Envy24HT certainly does have the high-end audio specifications, but we'll have to see if today's higher-clocked processors can make up for the loss in 3D audio acceleration.

ups !

[Indiana]

Yes, it's a known fact that VIA apparently stripped the ENVY24 down and removed some of the "professional" features in order to keep the price down and add useless "spec-sheet features" like 7.1 sound and 192KHz...

The original ENVY24 (made by ICEnsemble, which were later bought by VIA) is the real deal - the ENVY24HT is the product of VIA laying its dirty fingers on this great chip.

[Wombat]

Why are you even considering an Abit board? Have they magically improved? Also, speaking as a user with 512MB of RAM, 512MB isn't enough.

As for "it doesn't come in black," you can get faceplates rather easily.