Would like input / recommendation for a darn good sound card for a Dell Studio XPS motherboard . Win 7 64bit Intel i7 2.93 Ghz. PCIE. (To keep the processor from choking on O and Morrow.) Thanks. E.

For Oblivion especially you will want to avoid Asus soundcards, since the method that they use to force hardware acceleration causes constant crashing with Oblivion, not sure about Morrowind.

a hardware anolysis: http://tescosi.com/wiki/Oblivion:Hardware_anolysis

Hello there. You don't need to spend much on the sound card. As long as it has hardware acceleration, you should see the benefit. For ~$25, you can get a creative 7.1 SE card from Newegg. There are a number of 7.1 cards at that price. For a little more, you can get the Creative Xtreme Gamer or Creative Xtreme Audio. You can get a good price at Newegg and an even better price on Ebay.

I'd recommend the Xtreme Gamer, unless you really want to spend money on a great sound card. In that case, you can put out the cash for one of Creative's Titanium cards.


--Tomlong75210

Darn good: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=40000057&IsNodeId=1&Description=Titanium&name=Sound%20Cards&Order=BESTMATCH

Good: http://computers.shop.ebay.com/Computer-Components-/3667/i.html?_nkw=Xtreme+Gamer&_catref=1&_fln=1&_trksid=p3286.c0.m282


--Tomlong75210

I got a very good deal on a Creative SB X-Fi Titanium model, myself.

And Creative ALchemy does not have any of the problems problems that ASUS's solution to Hardware Acceleration does. Oblivion in particular makes no fuss about ALchemy.

I heartily recommend Creative for your audio hardware needs. They do a good job.