Home > Consumer Reviews > Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy Gamer Sound Card

My motherboard has problems with many sound cards. I was expecting to have problems with this card too; but luckily, I was wrong. I popped it in and WindowsXP automatically found and installed drivers for it just fine. I decided to `stress test' it by playing an MP3, RA file, MPEG, virus scan, and a few other programs at the same time. I've had some cards that would hiss and skip if there was any stress on the system. Amazingly, this card played everything beautifully.

As you may know, Phillips new sound card allows for adding different effects to sound. I.e. you can have everything sound like it's coming from underwater. The Audigy allows for the same type of effects. The Audigy doesn't have as many effects as the Phillips card, but the effects are more useful. You can turn male voices to female voices, change the pitch of the sounds, make it sound like an alien is speaking, etc.

The sound processor is four times faster than the Live! line. In addition, this card comes with a 1394 (firewire) connector, so you can plug in digital cameras, or network two PCs together through it. I haven't tried it yet, but it sounds cool. I just have to talk my friends into buying this card ;-)

I doubt there will be any games that support this card's new effects for several months. So if you already have a Vortex, Live!, or other good card, there is no reason to run and buy this. If (like me) you need a card right now, or you're still using a 16-bit card, there is no reason not to get this. Low memory systems might not be able to use all of the programs the card comes with. Many of the want to run all the time and are real memory hogs.

All in all, an excellent card.

Soundquality: 9/10

This card has got much more power than the previous Live!-cards and everything sounds great. It doesn't get the full 10 because of the lack of A3D-support (IMO better than EAX, but EAX isn't that bad...) and mere average MIDI-sound (Generalmusic) Don't be afraid though, there are some excellent Midifonts circling around the internet..

Software: 8/10

Not too much musicprograms but 2 great games: Giants and Deus Ex. An odd choice by the way since the sound of these games aren't the 'best ever heard'. But it's a good deal, since these games are fun to play.

Price/Quality-ratio: 10/10

This card isn't too expensive and it sounds very clean and clear; it's also got 5.1-support and the firewire-port is a welcome addition.

5 stars? Not quite... this baby still _hates_ mr. KT133 and KT266...

Ease of installation: 4/10 (VIA+AMD based system) | 8/10 (Pentium based system)

Checklist for VIA:

- Flash Bios, if it goes wrong you can buy a new mainboard...
- Install the new VIA 4 in 1 drivers, hope it goes allright (computer will behave rather strange if it doesn't..)
- Tweak Bios: prepare to spend several hours tweaking this thing..

If you don't do this, Windows is likely to crash often and the card produces a loud, crackling noise..

"Plug 'n Play huh?"

Concluding Thoughts:

This card is a great deal, reasonably priced and good sound but almost reaching 5 stars it trips over "Ease of Use" and loses one for being a frustrating brat and costing me three weekends pulling of utter frustration :)

Now everything's allright and I'm not at all disappointed. Just... be prepared :o

i am running a 1.4ghz athlon on an msi k7ta 266 motherboard, with 256mbs of ddr ram and a geforce 3 ti 500 video card. when i installed the xp operating system i was able to update drivers for everything except the philips sound card. i was able to find the beta drivers but they ended up being pretty lousy. coming out of stanby the only sound would be loud hissing. i have klipsch promedia 5.1 sound system so good sound was a must. i tried this audigy x-gamer and it worked perfect. no snags on the install, downloaded the drivers from the sound blaster site. the sound from this card is great. if your a gamer you gotta try this card.

I had no idea this card would make such an incredible difference than the factory card that was in my system. This is truly audiophile quality for those that really can't afford to be an audiophile. Creative claims that with their 24-bit/100dB SNR that you can listen to MP3/WMAs, CD's and any stereo music with high definition audio clarity surpassing high-end home theatre receivers and now I believe them. And for this price? It is incredible and most don't even know it exists. I bought a logitech z-560 speaker system and it sounded great with my system. Then a guy at a certain store that rhymes with gest guy told me that this would help the sound. What an understatement. It took a while to get hooked up properly (call creative and make sure all is set up right, they are very helpful) but when it worked I was flat out astonished at the clarity and power without hiss or ANY distortion. And all for less than a low quality home system amplifier by itself. This sounds every bit as good if not better than systems well over a grand. Toss out that old soundcard or even a new one and do whatever it takes to install one of these. It is certainly worth it.

The Sound Blaster Audigy Gamer is one of the best in the series. its low price tag and high performance is an attraction for any in-depth gamer or just advanced computer enthusiast. Its outputs allow for maximum output, and when paired with the Creative Inspire 5.1 speaker surround system, it makes your computer a virtual movie theater for DVDs. And just a note, contrary to previous reviews, for a relativiely low price ($ 30 or $ 40 I think), you can get a daughter card that connects easily to any Audigy or Live card that includes 2 SPDIF Input and 2 SPDIF Output, as well as an Adapter for TOSLink (Great for digitally recording music to your MiniDisc). EAX support and Audigy's amazing 3D sound performance should bring light to the darkness of your computer's monotonous tones. Its worth the price!!