Sound card: want a mid-to-high-end card for games

I want to buy a sound card that is of high quality, good enough to yank out of my computer and put it in a custom-built job a couple years down the road, but not so high end that I need a high-end audio system to appreciate the difference.

I have a pretty ordinary subwoofer/sattelite set ... Altec Lansing ADA880...was very nice several years ago but is a hand-me-down and has some kind of power supply funk that requires it to be powered off several times before it will stay off. The sound quality seems to be good but it probably has nothing on a component audio system.

Anyway, some friends all agreed that Soundblaster X-FI was the way to go but couldn't decide which one I should buy. Note that I *DO* want to pay for any quality that I will be able to notice on my current speakers, a decent set of headphones, or an average off-the-shelf sound system... but I don't want anything that is useless without a $500+ investment in a new sound system.

Also... is it bad to have the subwoofer less than 1 foot away from my computer? I have been assuming it is shielded but I do not know for a fact.

 

most speakers are magnetically shielded so u shouldnt have to worry about the sub being there.

the x-fi xtreme music is probably your best bet here; good performance while not being too heavy on the wallet. if you wanna step up a bit then go for the gamer edition.

xtreme music: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102188

gamer: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102005

if you're gonna be gaming a lot then id go for the gamer, it haas "x-ram" which takes the audio processing off your processor and system memory

 

What's the actual difference? I have a stock sound card, but it works fine, very nice sound -- it's just an onboard one.

 

I felt the same and never noticed anything until I was playing battlefield 2142 and heard a beeping sound whenever a walker was shooting at me up close ... my understanding was that the beeping was my factory sound card failing to reproduce the sound waveform properly due to lack of processing power (or lack of enough sound channels?).

Thanks for the advice Viper, I think I will go with the XFI gamer... I had been expecting to spend up to $200 since it's not a purchase I expect to have to repeat often, as can be the case with video cards.

 

yea the gamer will keep you goin pretty much forever lol, sounds cards havent "evolved" much over the years