Which Sound Card would you Recommend to get?

Question

As asked in a prior question of mine (asking again due to lack of a satisfactory answer), i'm currently looking to buy a Sound Card to replace the On-Board Sound in the coming week, my budget is £25 at maximum, although the lower the cost the better, providing it's good value for money of course.

So, which would YOU (best Kirchner face XD) recommend to buy?

Basic PC Stat's:

Motherboard: ASUS P4P800 - VM/S
Operating System: Windows XP Professional
Processor: Pentium IV 
Processor Output: 2.4 GHZ
RAM: 1GB (1024MB)

Note: My Desktop Case is only 16.5'' (long) by 13.1/8'' (wide) by 4'' (high), so the Soundcard must be a "Low Profile" type in order to fit.

brianthesnail123 · Accepted Answer

hi mate 
           the problem your going to have is the better soundcards use the pci-express x1 bus interface however your ASUS P4P800 - VM/S only supports 3 x pci slots and a agp slot ( which cant be used for soundcards )
            there are some good pci soundcards ( especially soundblaster ).. however getting one in low profile form factor may be slightly harder 
            however the good news is one of the best soundcards around is the "ASUS Xonar DG 5.1 PCI Soundcard "( http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Sound+Cards/ASUS+Xonar+DG+5.1+PCI+Soundcard+-+OEM+?productId=47111 ) and its also one of the only soundcards that come with a low profile bracket ..... ( and its pci )
              this also supports windows xp and the drivers can be downloaded from http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=Xonar%20DG&p=21&s=1&os=17&hashedid=FiWODUF4uhiJVJKD  ... ( theres also a download for 64bit windows xp ) 
               this card also only requires one slot ( width ) so it wont affect any graphic cards ... however if your graphic card takes up more than one slot you may need to use the second or third pci slot for the soundcard 
                all the other cards are either pci and standard size or pci-express x1 and low profile.. so the ASUS Xonar DG 5.1 PCI Soundcard is the only compatible model for your motherboard
               in terms of performance the xonar dg has excellent audio reproduction and compared to the ADI 1980 6-channel audio codec onboard solution your motherboard has your looking at a significant improvement in sound ....
                 if you use headphones then theres a unique headphone amp with the xonar dg... and combined with a decent set of headphones you will hear sounds much clearer than before 
              i can remember when i fitted my soundblaster x-fi extreme pci-e that replaced the realtek ac-97 onboard sound ... it sounded like when your ears pop and you hear things you never heard before .... and in games you even hear speech and gunfire that you never knew was in the game 
               so go with the asus xonar DG ... amazing soundcard and outstanding value for money 
                i hope this helps .. any questions let me know 
                        good luck mate !

starpc11 · Answer

Here's a good one  http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=n82e16829132020  also has a low profile bracket, oophs!  someone else had the same idea

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Which Sound Card would you Recommend to get?

2 Answers