How to choose a sound card?

How to choose a sound card?
The choice will depend on your sound card the sound quality on your computer. Sound cards come in several types: built into the motherboard installed in a PCI slot or connected via USB. You need to decide whether you are satisfied with an ordinary sound card, or you need a professional and expensive model. Most users will approach built into the motherboard option, because many of these cards even support 7.1 channel system sound system. However, if you are fond of writing music or just like to listen to lossless albums through headphones expensive, then perhaps you should purchase a separate sound card.

Answer to the question "how to select the sound card" if you are fond of games, and recordings.
Sound Card Creative Audigy 2 Platinum EX

Games.
It has long since become a tradition that new games are used for the implementation of surround sound with DirectSound3D interface add EAX from Creative. Therefore, the most relevant and high quality support for gaming applications, there is a product Creative. This is evident in the fact that selling now sound cards support EAX 3.0, and some - EAX 4.0 Advanced HD, which is a "new word" in articulating games. If you want to get the most out of today's toys and have a high-quality acoustics, then you should pay attention to the models of the firm:

    * Sound card with appartnym Live DSP (Digital Signal Processor - DSP) and good compatibility with games, is a budget option for a gaming system. However, the lack of EAX 4.0, a limited number of playback channels and the number of threads appartno mikshiruemyh DirectSound forced to look at new products Creative.
    * Fees Audigy, Audigy 2 and Audigy4 (excluding Value and-LS, about them later) are the latest in sound play, both on objective indicators: power DSP, EAX 4.0 Advanced HD, the maximum number of appartno mikshiruemyh flows - andsubjective: positive feedback of gamers.
    * In the next group of sound cards is not a hardware firm Creative DSP, so their effects are processed at the program level, which leads to high CPU utilization and poor performance in games. Also, they pretty poor implementation EAX 3.0.

So, as a budget solution for the gamer can select the sound card of a family of Live 5.1, and configurations for modern games are good sound card Audigy or Audigy2.

Sound recording and music.
To listen to music from Creative sound cards fit worse than for the games. The first reason - because the device Audigy and Audigy2 audio stream frequency 44 KHz (mp3 or wma files) while playing converted to 48 kHz. In theory, this should not cause any noticeable reduction in quality, but many music lovers complain about the other, in comparison with high-quality Audio CD, sound. The second feature is the absence of such cards in the drivers qualified support ASIO. Therefore, serious work on a multi-channel audio, these cards are not too consistent. Formal support for ASIO 2.0 in some models of sound cards Creative (for example, Audigy2 Platinum EX) is the claim of many users.The above-mentioned shortcomings are absent in the professional cards DTMP (DeskTop Music Production), but they are quite expensive.

Not so long ago appeared on the market a new class of sound cards based on chips made by the company VIA - Envy24.These cards have no problems with drivers and professional audio applications. They allow you to comfortably work with audio or without delay to play the midi-keyboard, taking advantage of new software synthesizers.

Compared with professional cards, they have a good set of 6-8 analog outputs (sold better than Creative), so for those who want an inexpensive home theater system that supports DTS (7.1) without the decoder, it will be a good choice.

These sound cards present the implementation of EAX 2.0, which formally makes the board suitable for gaming, but in modern toys they lag models Creative (Audigy2).