Need help deciding which sound card to buy

[mrprimo55]

Hey everyone. I'm about to buy some new Creative 5.1 speakers for my computer and I need to buy a new sound card that will support them. I've narrowed it down to two Creative sound cards and other than the price I can't tell what the difference is between the two. I don't know much about audio stuff so any help would be appreciated. Here are the links for the cards from newegg.com :
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16829102179
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16829102175

Also, if you have any suggestions as to a different card that I should get feel free to tell me, but I'm not looking to spend a lot of money and I really don't need one of the Audigy2 ZS cards or anything extreme like that. Thanks a bunch.

 

[ripken204]

get the cheaper one, they are the same exact sound card, except that the more expensive one has splinter cell, a demo game disk, a demo audio disk, and the only important thing, the driver/application disk, which you can download the drivers from their site

 

[CirTap]

Hi,
what's your main application for the 5.1? Games, audio editing, DVD/video?
Anything with real "Dolby 5.1" support will come out to be as "extreme" as the Audigy2, but you may find some (better?) other manufactorer, however no as "cheep" as a SB card.
I found they cause too much trouble with all their (unneccesary) features, unless you're a gamer: MIDI port, joystick, firewire etc. depending on the version.
For good audio and 5.1/7.1 support consider a *real* audio card w/o all the bells and whistles but good AD/DA converters.
The "Revolution" serie from M-Audio are a possible alternative: (You may need to search for better retail prices though <g>)
http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.list&ID=pciinterfaces
And if you go for audio editing/recording, imho M-Audio's ASIO support is far better than Creative's.

Have fun,
CirTap

 

[zephead]

unless you're specifically going for better than 96 KHz at 24 bit-depth, the cheaper one is the best choice.