Buyer's Guide: Mid-Range to High-End, May 2005
by Jarred Walton on May 23, 2005 5:30 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Sound and Speakers
We've covered almost everything with the exception of sound. We feel that the integrated audio is sufficient for anyone who doesn't intend to do any recording of audio, so we don't feel that an actual sound card is really necessary. If you do want a sound card, you can always pick up a Creative Audigy 2 ZS for about $75 or the M-Audio Revolution 7.1 for about $90. Both are good cards, with the Creative having more of a gaming slant. However, those cards are rather expensive for the offered features, and you might want a sound card if your motherboard doesn't offer an S/PDIF connection for output, though you need speakers with an S/PDIF input to make use of such a feature. Since that's what we'll use for our High-End speaker selection, we're going to include a sound card specifically for that segment.
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Sound Card: Chaintech AV-710 7.1
Price: $27 Shipped
We're not going to blow a ton of money on the sound card, especially when all we're really interested in is the digital audio output. The good news is that the Chaintech card is still a good quality card and provides audio comparable to that of the Revolution 7.1 at a much lower cost. Powered by the VIA Envy 24PT chip, the card provides clean, crisp audio that many will feel is more than worth the price. Two stereo input ports are also present, which allows for line-in as well as a microphone. About the only thing missing is an S/PDIF IN port. If you want that, you'll need a more capable sound card like the Turtle Beach Catalina. It has 24-bit 7.1 audio along with optical in and out ports for around $50 if you're interested.
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Speakers: Logitech Z-5300e 5.1
Price: $135 Shipped
We're going with more capable speakers for our mid-range setup than what we've recommended in the past. If you don't need really nice audio from your PC, you can go with the cheaper X-530 speakers from Logitech or some good quality 2.1 speakers. You could even get by with no speakers, though we feel most people will want at least decent audio out of a $1000+ computer. The Z-5300e is the big brother to the X-530, with higher quality and better sounding satellites. They're also capable of much higher volume levels, so you can make sure that the whole neighborhood knows which movie you're watching - or not. Other than getting even louder speakers, the only real omission on the Z-5300e is support for digital connections. It's certainly not required, but many home theaters use digital audio connections, and with good reason. That brings us to the High-End recommendation.
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Speakers: Logitech Z-5500d 5.1
Price: $245 Shipped
If the Z-5300 is the big brother of the X-530, then the Z-5500d is the X-530's daddy. While there are other differences between the 5300 and 5500, the major addition is support for DTS and Dolby Digital decoding on the speakers. Sure, you can have the PC or sound card do that for you, but then you have to deal with potential noise and interference from the circuitry within the computer. If you go with a digital connection, you're basically guaranteed to get no interference up to the speakers. If you don't already have a decent home theater setup, the Z-5500d speakers are capable of giving much more expensive speakers a run for the money. They're not likely to beat out speakers costing thousands of dollars, but for the price, they're extremely impressive.
We've been saying "Logitech" a lot while talking about speakers, but they certainly aren't the only option out there. Altec Lansing, Boston Acoustics, Creative, and Klipsch are all reasonable alternatives, and the way sound is perceived varies from person to person - what we like may not be what you like. That said, Logitech has been extremely aggressive with their pricing. Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 5.1 speakers are another favorite of the high-end, and many would say that the warranty and support provided by Klipsch is more than worth the increased price. You would lose the digital aspect of the Z-5500d's if you go that route, however, and which speaker actually sounds better is something that audiophiles could debate for hours on end. We think that they both sound good, but digital inputs and $100 in savings is hard to argue with, which is why we've gone with the Logitech speakers. If you have further questions on the matter of speakers, the peripherals area of our forums is a good place to start.
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Tujan - Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - link
Err a,thanks for reply..Calin.bummer when I do that.
Garyclaus16 - Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - link
All this article tells me is that my once 'bleeding edge' [939 Athlon64 3200+]system is now merely a mid range PC...save for my pqi turbo 2-2-2-5 :PStill...I am sad...I need to save up another 2k now for later this year. > :(
Tujan - Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - link
Thanks for reply Chris..Yeah Ive followed a few stories about the VIA Edens. Just hovering around 1 GHz. With single PCI slot.They too,have onboard graphics. Like pull that off , keep onboard sound maybe,...
Certainly limiting themselves with that kind of choice.Then Im not what that is suppose to reach. Two PCI-e slots at minimum for me.But this sends the engineers back to work.
Most vendors Iv seen include the graphics onto the mini-atx motherboards. MSI has an mini-atx w/o graphics ,..775.But isn't seen at vendors. Situation with the power,could make do with feature set of 915..945,955/Nvidias on mini-atx(s),.Since the lan is onboard.Might consider having maybe single Sata as well.
Not like being able to see clearly now...""I can see clearly now the rain is gone""..:)
Weird how we will see magic in closed black box embedded solution before we have that choice.
ProviaFan - Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - link
I agree with #34 for the most part, but anyone heavily into digital photography (whether with DSLR or scanned film) knows that it is very easy to exceed 1GB with Photoshop and a few images with some adjustment layers and layer masks (not to mention that my PC is general purpose and I usually have other stuff going in the background as well).stickx - Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - link
quoted from the guide: "long-time favorite, the OCZ Rev. 2 Platinum. While the price increase is quite drastic, it's worth mentioning that this same RAM cost as much as $275 just a few months back. It uses Samsung TCCD memory blanks"Unfortunately OCZ is no longer using TCCD memory in this product. This has been verified on several forums in xtremesystems.org and in dfi-street.com where people have removed the heat spreaders to find chips other that TCCD. I think you need to update your guide for this info.
OrSin - Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - link
Damn people get off thier backs. It a damn guide. Make all the choices you. They are giving thier recommondation, they are not give you ever fcking choice under the sun. No guide can have everyones choice.And ars, I don't know what planet your from but if you think epox is even near Asus or MSI in quality then then you full of it. If i saw any sit say Exop is better then ASUS, then I would stop reading them. Better then chaintech ost likely then not the top tier guys.
And for the record I play alot games and have noticed no improvement with 2GB of 1GB or memory.
Don know what you do thet 2GB is needed. Now I'm not saying you can;t find a way to use more then 1GB, but how many people actually do and on a regular bases.
Pythias - Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - link
When you guys refer to response time, is thet grey-to-grey, black-white-black, or total response time?MrOblivious - Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - link
Supposedly the issue with MSI NEO4 boards and 90nm chips has been fixed:http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?topic=80384.0
arswihart - Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - link
Kris - so you are now saying all mobo makers are essentially equal in terms of support, upgrades, MTBF (bad caps excuse is dead now since they all use good/great quality caps). So what's left to make me choose Asus/MSI? If you are saying reputation, I can just direct you to the forums, their boards are no better or worse than any of the competition. If you are recommending based on sales, thats just dumb.ceefka - Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - link
#1 I don't know how the onboard will handle sound in games, but I'd count on it to do that on the level it is built, i.e. no better than it will play a CD or DVD. It is however safe to say that onboard will definately not work for (semi)professional audio on a PC.I always thought that any realtime sound effects were handled by the CPU, unless you have a dedicated DSP-card or multiples thereof which gamers seldom do ;-)
Jarred: "anyone who doesn't intend to do any recording of audio" and what about those that do? I do read a lot about DAW's on the net, but have to get back to AT regularly to get a the details straight.
What do you make of this? http://www.rme-audio.com/english/techinfo/nforce4_...
With the Thonex audio stress test file (downloadable from http://www.adkproaudio.com/downloads.cfm), including memory-intensive data communication via samples/VSTis, and used with Cubase SX/Nuendo 2/3, soundcard latency has to be increased to approx. 2048 samples buffer latency setting with the NF4 to receive glitch-free audio recordings whereas with the NF3, and equivalent software/hardware/soundware equipment, the minimum latency can be significantly reduced (some 128-256 samples). Likewise, cpu load values are significantly higher with the NF4 than with the NF3 ditto - based on exactly the same audio stress test files and equivalent hardware peripherals.
The Thonex could be nice for your next high end guide when the dualcores are out.