I have an HP system AMD Athlon 850mhz, standard 16bit sound card. I am in the rpocess of upgrading my saound package and want some adivce. I have read lots of good thing on both the Santa Cruz and Audigy cards. I'm unsure if the Santa Cruz is compatible with AMD chipset? Im an interested in music and games, no midi. Which one would you suggest? Thanks for your advice!
bclark21330 0 Newbie Poster
TallCool1 81 Practically a Posting Shark Team Colleague
I have an HP system AMD Athlon 850mhz, standard 16bit sound card. I am in the process of upgrading my sound package and want some adivce. I have read lots of good thing on both the Santa Cruz and Audigy cards. I'm unsure if the Santa Cruz is compatible with AMD chipset? Im an interested in music and games, no midi. Which one would you suggest? Thanks for your advice!
There is essentially no difference between the Creative Audigy and SB Live! for audio playback; the Audigy 2 is a different story; without a doubt, it blows away the Santa Cruz, but at a higher price. Compatibilty for either card shouldn't be an issue; MIDI is included by default.
Of course, your choices are not just limited to those two brands & models, either. Other cards are now available built on the Envy24 series of chips from VIA. Two manufacturers that use the VIA chips are M-Audio and Terratec. These provide audio performance better than the Audigy series -- Envy24 chips are actually used in some pro-level recording equipment.
Of course, all this is subjective; your mileage (and ears) may vary. On the other hand, I used to be a professional audio recording engineer, so I'd like to think that I know what I'm talking about ;)
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