good sound card

[nitro22]

Can someone recomend a top of the line sound card. I am building a good system, but don't know much about sound cards... your input is greatly apreciated. Also, is there a graphics card out there that beats the Matrox Marvel G450 or Marvel G450 eTV??

Thanks!!

[jak]

i like the sound blaster live personally. i run dvd's and vhs movies on my comp and they still sound pretty crisp. but remember its not only the sound cards that creat good sound, many people have awesome sound cards but cheap @ss speakers and then complain why it sounds so bad. I've got the ati all-in -wonder 128 but i hear that the all-in-wonder radeon is gonna beat the geforce 3. so maybe you should go w/ the radeon if u got the money, expensive ****. i like the all in wonder features w/ everything bui8lt in( cable in-s-video in- and composite as well its built in dvd hardware decoder. i anna get the all inwonder radeon so bad, now if only i had the money!
hope this helps
jak

[NDC]

but remember its not only the sound cards that creat good sound, many people have awesome sound cards but cheap @ss speakers and then complain why it sounds so bad

Exactly... Speakers make a big difference!

And as for the graphic card, you will notice that G400 and G450 aren't very fast cards, but output excellent quality images.....so it purely depends on what you're going to be doing on your system. If speed isn't what you'r after, I'd say to go for the Matrox G-Series.

[This message has been edited by NDC (edited 03-20-2001).]

[nitro22]

I dont play games on it, but do some serious graphics stuff. Photoshop mainly. does not seem like speed would be important to photoshop. What do you think?

[Warthog]

ditto SB Live * 50 (for the amount of people that will say it)

IMO, speakers matter more than a sound card. What speakers do you have?

Warthog

[nitro22]

I wanted to connect the sound card to my DTS reciever and play it through my home theatre system. (good amp/speakers)

[jadison]

Marvel's G450 and the eTV version are specifically for TV/or DVD use, they're not as graphics intensive as...say Voodoo's 5500 64MB or ATI Radeon's 32Mb cards. If ur mainly using graphics intensive apps, and are not watching TV, or that many DVD's off ur computer, then I would'nt go for Matrox, but instead Voodoo or ATI.

As for sound cards, as a current user of a Sound Blaster Live!, I have nothing to complain about, it's an awesome card, for a complete review by none other than our SysOpt staff go here: http://www.sysopt.com/reviews/sblive/

-=jd=-

[nitro22]

thank you. that helps