My next upgrade is a sound card, been looking at the Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty here:
http://www.powerc.com/cgi-bin/ ... =&cid=1&act=gpage

I am currently running onboard sound and wondered what you people thought about it? Is it a worthy investment?

Looks a good card, you should be able to get it cheaper than that though.

Haven't really searched much, but http://www.ebuyer.co.uk/UK/product/96739/rb/18639173131

Ask yourself if you really need all those features, and the sound quality (music wise anyway) won't be any different unless you've spent hundreds on your hifi.

No idea about sound effects, don't think LFS uses any anyway.

I used built-in sound for years, never had problems, would rather invest that money into quality amp/speakers so I get the improvement for everything audio.

The thing that makes that card so expensive is the 64mb of xram that is supposed to improve performance by reducing CPU load by the sound side of things. From what I've seen it works, but unless the rest of you machine is the muts nuts already, you'd be better off going for a slightly less pricey one and putting the money you save towards your next upgrade.

Do you really need the remote and live drive? If not, the X-Fi Xtreme Music would be a much better choice at half the cost. Better still, if you arent concerned about the latest EAX effects and some fancy features, you could go for an Audigy and save even more.

The biggest advantages of a dedicated sound card is the SNR and the performance. If you use sensitive speakers / headphones, all the interference from the computer will drive you nuts. Around 100db SNR is only just audible on really sensitive equipment.
The performance gains aren't really that noticable on most machines. Only a few FPS here and there but it depends on the motherboard.

I changed my old sound blaster for this x-fi Fatal1ty, and i love it.
The speakers i use is the logitech Z 5500, and believe me, there is a big difference, even my wife heard it !!!!

I'm using an X-Fi and with LFS it sounds exactly the same as my old Audigy. If you play games such as BattleField 2 or the upcomming Ghost Recon game (and you have a machine good enough to play those two) then its worth your while as they sound so much better. If you just play LFS then its really not a worth while upgrade.

Went for it and god what a change. Only had 1 little problem but all I had to do was to move a connection from 1 place to another.

In games it does not make much of a diffrence, but music, tv and videos there is a huge improvement.

Quote from seggons :

In games it does not make much of a diffrence, but music, tv and videos there is a huge improvement.

Bizzarre, the totally opposite to what I would expect.

Well I have a 2.1 setup and the musics bass lines are so much stronger and clearer to the point I have had to turn things down. When I tuned it up half way with my onboard, the music would of hit its peak and got worse the louder it got, but with the card the speakers continue to produce more and keeps getting clearer.

I have tried only Netkar pro, LFS and Rigs of Rods and with them 3, there is no real noticeable diffrence. LFS still sounds like a food blender and netkar still sounds like netkar.

Alot of diffrent features on it but only the 24-Bit crystalizer seems to do anything effective, mainly because the others are for 3D effects for 5.1 or 4.1 setups.

But the diffrence in sound in my music is quite something.

Anyway thats my little review of it.