[ZmaN]

I am comtemplating buying an Audigy 2 (I DIDNT SAY AUDIGY 2 ZS!)...
The Audigy 2 ZS OEM, the Audigy 2 Value, and the Audigy 2 ZS Retail....  Are the three cards I am looking at...

Does the AUdigy Value sound any different than the Audigy 2 ZS?
If I buy the retail of the ZS, the only difference is that I get two games with it (Rainbow Six and Tomb Raider)  Is it worth spending the extra money to get the two games?  you can check prices on newegg or some other store that you find...

Any help would be appreciated...

My main question is does the Audigy 2 ZS sound better then the Value version and if so, how much better???

[CP5670]

No, they're nearly identical. Check Creative's website. The ZS has firewire and gold plated connectors, which may give slightly less interference, but that's about it.

The OEM cards also have front port headers while the retail cards don't, if that's important to you. Newegg currently has big rebates on the retail cards though.

[ZmaN]

No, they're nearly identical. Check Creative's website. The ZS has firewire and gold plated connectors, which may give slightly less interference, but that's about it.

The OEM cards also have front port headers while the retail cards don't, if that's important to you. Newegg currently has big rebates on the retail cards though.

and what are they used for?

[Scuddie]

The audigy 2 ZS is an updated card, so ofcourse it will sound better.  The difference, however is marginal and most say only the true audiophile would notice a big difference.  Anyway, I am going to shun you for being interested in Audigy 2 cards.  Shun!  Shun!  Shun!  OK, now that's overwith, I'll explain why you have been shunned.  The audigy 2 is a terrible product.  Not only are they very aged, but they spam DMA all across the PCI bus.  Do a google for Audigy Squeal of Death and you'll see why.  I would shell out the extra cash and buy an X-Fi XTreme Music for $120 retail.  I replaced my Audigy 2 with it, and I never looked back.

[ZmaN]

i cant afford an X-fi....  too much $$$...  Any other alternatives?

[Scuddie]

As a matter of fact, there is.  Turtle Beach Santa Cruz is considered the best among the 5.1 cards.  It's old, but arguably more powerful than an Audigy 2, and it's very light on PCI noise.  Too bad the product is discontinued, but you might find one...  hopefully.  Turtle Beach phased out their older cards, but I don't know which is the successor to the Santa Cruz.  I'm thinking the Catalina, but I'm not sure.

[CP5670]

None of those cards have the EAX 4.0 support though, which makes them unsuitable for games even if they are better for music and recording.

The Audigy 2 works just fine. There are people who have gotten the squeal of death thing, but the vast majority have no problems with it. The retail A2 value is $40 on Newegg and is an excellent card for the price, having all the features of the more expensive A2 cards. The x-fi looks nice but I doubt it's worth paying three times as much for from a gaming point of view.

[q]and what are they used for?[/q]

If your case has headphone and mic jacks in the front, you can connect them to that header.

[ZmaN]

so If i wanted a budget sound card, the audigy 2 value would sound exactly the same as a ZS? 
I'm only asking because it will be worth it in the end, but if it happens that I need the rebate money for something else (if i but a ZS), that wont be good..... 

[Flipside]

Audigy are pretty good cards, I've been using an Audigy one for a couple of years. Most of the upgrade on the ZS, from what I can tell, are based around music creation and recording. The gold plated plugs are slightly higher quality, but for games playing etc, the difference will be virtually un-noticeable (to be honest, gold-plated sockets are a bit of a turkey when dealing with digital audio anyway).

The Firewire can be used for Networking, I've used it to link two computers together so I could run multiple instances of Cubase, but unless you have other computers or Peripherals with firewire, it's pretty much a redundancy for you.

Basically, if it's a good games playing/mp3 listening card you are looking for, and you are determined to get an Audigy, the Value is fine. That said, CP is right, you might do better looking at cheaper cards, the Audigy supports 24Bit, 48Khz sound, which is great, except that there are no games or music available at that quality, it's basically designed for studio quality recording.

I use an Audiophile now (24 Bit, 96Khz), it's one hell of a card for recording, but, alas, has practically no Surround or EAX support whatsoever.

[Edward Bradshaw]

I use an Audiophile now (24 Bit, 96Khz), it's one hell of a card for recording, but, alas, has practically no Surround or EAX support whatsoever.

Thats because the Audiophile is a proper music card, not a gaming card. Creative cards are gaming and mutimedia cards dressed up to look like "music creation" cards.

I finially bought a proper music card last year with my new PCs, a Hammerfall HDSP 9652, and now everything actually works. For games however, its terrible. Thats why they suggest you use at least a cheap commercial soundcard along with it for that reason.

Ed

[Flipside]

Yup, I even thought about an Audigy 2 as my second card, but the Phile didn't get on too well with the Audigy 1 when I tried it, so I decided best not to risk it

But yes, it's the best Virtual Synth card I've ever used.

[ZmaN]

okay...  Ill see what money I have available, but from what im lookin at, i'll probably get the Audigy 2 Value, plus I have a 3 port firewire card, so Its not like i NEED the firewire plug on a ZS...... 
Couple more questions:

Do gold plated sockets do anything?
I mainly play games (like far cry, quake 4 occasionally [demo], listen to my WMA music library, and other normal stuff, but yea i dont record or make music, i just listen to it......
Are the bundled games any good?  (Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Raven's Shield and Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness)
The Value card has a bundled version of Splinter Cell 1, so the games may very well be worth it, unless I can get them dirt cheap on Ebay, then ill do that...

Looks like i'll be gettin a value unless I have the extra money to spend...  (i have to have an extra 30 bucks up front for a ZS if I get it)

EDIT: one more questionn added

[Flipside]

Gold plated sockets are actually not all that useful for playback, they are mainly a recording thing, despite so many headphones sporting 'gold plated pickups', because of the fact that digital music is well... not analog, they really don't make a noticeable difference.

[Edward Bradshaw]

Gold plated sockets are actually not all that useful for playback, they are mainly a recording thing, despite so many headphones sporting 'gold plated pickups', because of the fact that digital music is well... not analog, they really don't make a noticeable difference.

Its gold plated sockets are just a gimmic.

[Nuke]

i was fine using the digital out spdif port on my onboard soundcard to an external reciever, at least until my cat ran across the cable and sheared the port of of the mobo. fortunately that was the extent of my damage, so i disabled the onboard sound (wasnt about to use the analog ports, ewww) and dug my old extigy out of the closet. i had got the thing years back for the laptop i had back in school. i know the usb load is great, and it caused some stuttering on my old computer (not this one fortunately). my question is, should i replace it? it works fine and sounds good, but ive wanted to dithc this extigy for a long time now. the only thing the tiny electronics place here has is the audigy 2, and i dont feel like ordering something else. so would it be a good bet to get it or just keep the damn extigy. id also need to know which one has front panel heders cause id like to hook up my front audio ports to them.

[Edward Bradshaw]

i was fine using the digital out spdif port on my onboard soundcard to an external reciever, at least until my cat ran across the cable and sheared the port of of the mobo. fortunately that was the extent of my damage, so i disabled the onboard sound (wasnt about to use the analog ports, ewww) and dug my old extigy out of the closet. i had got the thing years back for the laptop i had back in school. i know the usb load is great, and it caused some stuttering on my old computer (not this one fortunately). my question is, should i replace it? it works fine and sounds good, but ive wanted to dithc this extigy for a long time now. the only thing the tiny electronics place here has is the audigy 2, and i dont feel like ordering something else. so would it be a good bet to get it or just keep the damn extigy. id also need to know which one has front panel heders cause id like to hook up my front audio ports to them.

You want to use it for games or music making?

Aside from simple stuff, creative cards for music = much frustration.

Ed

[MatthewPapa]

Ive never owned a soundcard
everything on my integrated sound sounds fine so i dont see why u would need one
what makes them worth the extra $$$$?

[CP5670]

The standard onboard ALC850 sounds like trash compared to any of these cards IMO and is also a CPU hog in games. I tried it out once while trying to fix some problem and went back to the Audigy 2 after five minutes. The new MSI boards are supposed to be very good though with their built-in Live and Audigy chips.

[Flipside]

Depends what sort of soundcard you've got. Mainly it's a difference you have to hear, and usually need quite expensive set-ups to do so.

And I'll certainly agree with Ed here, avoid the Audigy for recording if possible, I use the input ports of it, because they are on a little hardrive shaped thing that actually goes at the front of the computer, but the drivers are always, and will always be, designed primarily for gamers with musicians as an afterthought.

[Nuke]

i was fine using the digital out spdif port on my onboard soundcard to an external reciever, at least until my cat ran across the cable and sheared the port of of the mobo. fortunately that was the extent of my damage, so i disabled the onboard sound (wasnt about to use the analog ports, ewww) and dug my old extigy out of the closet. i had got the thing years back for the laptop i had back in school. i know the usb load is great, and it caused some stuttering on my old computer (not this one fortunately). my question is, should i replace it? it works fine and sounds good, but ive wanted to dithc this extigy for a long time now. the only thing the tiny electronics place here has is the audigy 2, and i dont feel like ordering something else. so would it be a good bet to get it or just keep the damn extigy. id also need to know which one has front panel heders cause id like to hook up my front audio ports to them.

You want to use it for games or music making?

Aside from simple stuff, creative cards for music = much frustration.

Ed

aside from the normal mp3 playing its pretty much for multimedia. i have no need for something fancy. i want as simple a setup as possible, i just want to do away with the external box.