Decent sound card for MCE2005?

Rayder · May 18, 2008, 08:34 PM

What's a decent sound card for an MCE2005 system? I don't want an expensive card, just one that works without problems and does 5.1 adequately.

The problem we're having is we get an occasional stutter in movie playback using onboard sound and we believe it's the onboard sound causing the stutter, so we want to pop in an actual card for sound. Optical pass-throughs would be nice too as the system will be hooking up to a home entertainment system once we get our big-screen TV.

Any brand will do as long as it's cheap (middle-of-the-road cheap anyway) and works well enough without issues. Needs to have decent XP drivers without a lot of bloat.

Previously we always used Audigy's (they were good enough for us, except for the driver bloat), but those seem to not really be available anymore, so we don't know what to go to next (we haven't updated our PC's in quite a while besides just adding hard drives, so we're a bit out-of-the-loop). Cards we see now seem to be either cheapness or super-expensive.....we don't want super-expensive, but we don't want to buy a crappy one either. See our quandary?

What should we get? We're not really what you'd call audiophiles, but this stutter in MCE2005 in our one system with onboard sound needs to go away.

Thanks

Robert McClelland · May 19, 2008, 05:24 AM

get the beach card be your best bet

only 50 bucks

BiGBrOwNPimpsta · May 27, 2008, 01:45 AM

im happy with my x-fi. but onboard is always good with the new intel mobos. they support optical and upto 7.1. x-fi's can get an extra optical adapter and it will run on optical that way.

May 18, 2008, 08:34 PM	#1
Rayder Mostly lurking lately.... Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: U.S.A. Posts: 2,160 Rep Power: 71	Decent sound card for MCE2005? What's a decent sound card for an MCE2005 system? I don't want an expensive card, just one that works without problems and does 5.1 adequately. The problem we're having is we get an occasional stutter in movie playback using onboard sound and we believe it's the onboard sound causing the stutter, so we want to pop in an actual card for sound. Optical pass-throughs would be nice too as the system will be hooking up to a home entertainment system once we get our big-screen TV. Any brand will do as long as it's cheap (middle-of-the-road cheap anyway) and works well enough without issues. Needs to have decent XP drivers without a lot of bloat. Previously we always used Audigy's (they were good enough for us, except for the driver bloat), but those seem to not really be available anymore, so we don't know what to go to next (we haven't updated our PC's in quite a while besides just adding hard drives, so we're a bit out-of-the-loop). Cards we see now seem to be either cheapness or super-expensive.....we don't want super-expensive, but we don't want to buy a crappy one either. See our quandary? What should we get? We're not really what you'd call audiophiles, but this stutter in MCE2005 in our one system with onboard sound needs to go away. Thanks

May 19, 2008, 05:24 AM	#2
Robert McClelland PAX Tweaker, PAX Expert. Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Somewhere in Wood County Ohio Same Town :) Posts: 10,236 Rep Power: 193 System Specs	get the beach card be your best bet only 50 bucks __________________ "XTREME AUDIO IS CRAP!" "There no support for it. It's crapist card on face of the earth it should be throw into the sun" http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=2242746

May 27, 2008, 01:45 AM	#3
BiGBrOwNPimpsta HH's #1 Hustla and Pimp Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: The Dirty Dot Posts: 7,706 Rep Power: 105 System Specs	im happy with my x-fi. but onboard is always good with the new intel mobos. they support optical and upto 7.1. x-fi's can get an extra optical adapter and it will run on optical that way. __________________ Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music \| Logitech Z-5500 THX 5.1 Surround Sound Speakers \| 2 Lite-On 20x S-ATA Burners \| Logitech G700 Mouse \| Logitech MX5500 Bluetooth Keyboard