I don't want the most expensive sound card because I am not a gamer or an audiophile. I just want a good enough sound card that will suppor 5.1 surround or higher with not a lot of distortion or sound artifacts and will take a load off of my cpu. Any suggestions?
Look no further,here is a great card that will do what you need it to and for a pretty good price>http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102003
From what I have read from the reviews online, it doesn't seem to offload some of the stress from the CPU that onboard soundcards can cause.
Well,I never really measured cpu usage from my sound card but I did check it out today,this is what I've found.Using one of my other computers with an Intel Prescott running 3.0 ghz. 49 processes running with music playing from cd. Cpu usage is at 3% avg. Unless your running an old 386,I don't see that as a being cpu intensive... but to each his own.
I dunno if you would like an external card, but I got the 24bit Soundblaster Live External. It does 5.1 as well as digital optical and is great for outputting sound from my laptop to my receiver. Only thing I haven't figured out is how to output DTS audio (from audio cd not from DVD stream) to my receiver so it will play (it only plays static when it recognizes it as DTS), but still a great card!
