Audigy 2 ZS vs. Onboard Audio Quick Question

[duffers20]

Hey, I was just wondering if I would notice any difference between my onboard audio and an Audigy 2 ZS in day to day listening to music and gaming (mainly CS:Source). I have a decent set of Creative speakers, I-Trigue 3400 2.1 which I think are great, and I'm not sure if i'm getting the most out of them with the onboard audio. Thanks in advance for your comments!

 

[baron insig]

YES you bloody well weill
dedicated sond rendering devices will take work away from the cpu, aswell as giving better sound quality,

you cant tell me your chipset supports eax 4? well guess what the audigy 2 zs does as well as 24 bit sound , THX certification eax aplyable to your music, graphics equalizer can be applied to all sound thruput,

i have one sounds lush

 

[Garfield_]

Well it depends. Of course there is allways a big difference but with regular speakers its worthless. If you decide to buy an audigy 2 zs you should have a good surround system nexto you :>

 

[J_Tweedy]

you can get a soundblaster live! 5.1 that's 24bit for like 20 bucks. I got one and its great for just everyday music and games- can't see how you'd notice a huge diffference in sound, unless you had 500 dollar headphones, or a 3000 dollar sound setup.

 

[freeman2]

Go for it you will notice a big differance.
Audigy 2 ZS will knock spots off of Soundblaster Live 5.1, I can tell you that from experiance.

 

[PunisherUSA]

Buy speakers before an audigy. 2.1 will no be nearly as impressive as 5.1

 

[NikolaX]

lol 24 bit, do you kidz realy know what it means ?
becose you will not need more then 16 bit.

but with a dedicate sound card you will free cpu load, and maybe get better Signal-to-Noise Ratio , so it will be better with audigy 2 zs.

 

[duffers20]

I came into alittle money recently so I bought the card as it was on offer at overclockers.co.uk. Should be here soon!

 

[Asus]

It depends on your onboard sound. Creative is really good for 5.1 speaker systems (sound direction). With music so-so (there are better). But it will help reduce CPU load a bit. Add a few frames to your game.

Personally, I don't really like Creatives drivers. I had me a Santa Cruz and it was very nice and sounded better than my Creative parts. My older Live 5.1 and Audgy had a few issues under different OS's including Windows XP. For speakers, I had an older (99$) 5.1 creative speaker set, i much perfer my 2.1 logitech system (150$). It's a lot more powerful of course but I don't miss the 5.1 aspect.

 

[duffers20]

Yeh well i would love to have a 5.1 system, that would be great but i don't have the space for them, thats why I had to go with the 2.1, which are good enough for me personally.

 

[The Brick]

I have audigy 2 zs platinum pro and creative Megaworks 5.1 THX surround setup. Every cent was worth it.

 

[duffers20]

card arrived today, and its great. Speakers sound alot better, they are picking up sounds that I didnt' hear before, which is great. Also teh bass sounds more defined and clearer, less 'boomy' if you know what i mean.

 

[IonizeMyAtoms]

Ohhh I can't wait to get mine when I build my computer in a couple weeks

 

[holydeadpenguins]

The I-trigue aren't the greatest speakers though.

 

[duffers20]

The I-trigue aren't the greatest speakers though.

They are good enough for me, might not be the best but they are good enough for what i use them for.

 

[holydeadpenguins]

I prefer the gigaworks 5.1 system.

 

[the_lone_wolf]

running Audigy 2 ZS and Inspire 6700 speakers, got them for <£100 combined, definately the best bit of my computer for me. HL2 sounds totally different to my onboard audio, with EAX it's a whole new experience, and it also gave me a healthy fps boost.

For day to day use it's bassy and makes music sound amazing, 10x better than my onboard. i love my music so this was also important to me. gaming is greatly improved, except D3 which isn;t keen on anything above 5.1 - apart from that they have been flawless, i have had NO issues with drivers or software if you know how to sort out a computer yourself you'll have no problem disabling the extra startup processes