Help with sound card choice

Hi

I have given up on speakers and sound cards, even disable the on board audio
I use 2 sets of USB headphones one movies one gaming everything sounds great
Music I listen to on 2GB ipod,

I gather main need is for gaming or are you a audiophile as well ?
What speaker system / headphones will you run ?
Budget I gather by your build money is not a issue ?

All those things will help some better suited to answer

 

Asus Xonar DGX is a very popular sound card for Buttkickers.

 

On your build

1.
SSD get Samsung M2, I have 500GB 970-Evo very quick
I partition only 60GB for W10 home ( I run no major software ) and is 50% free space
unless you need features in W10 Pro it is waste of money IMO, better spent elsewhere

Then I partition rest of space ( 405GB) for default Steam folder and most important sims

2.
I would really get 32GB of ram from here on in if you looking at 2-3+ years between upgrades

He is some food for thought:

NOTE: where as GTX1070 get no gains at all

Full article and remember to think 2 years from now
https://www.techspot.com/article/1770-how-much-ram-pc-gaming/

 

Yes download latest driver from site and manual for convenience
Go offline just in case W10 attempts to install wrong driver
Plug in furthest slot from RTX to give it room to breath
install driver
go back online

edit:
Forget the bit about pci-e1.0 slots if you read.... they are all 3.0 now obviously doh

 

As a dedicated high end soundcard I can only recommend the Auzen X-Fi Forte 7.1.
Its both an advanced gaming and audiophile soundcard and I have been running such a card for about 10 years.
The card uses Creatives most advanced soundprocessor X-Fi CA20K which is way better than Creatives and others newer processors.

This processor has a lot of virtual headphone features specially aimed at gaming.

You have to find the card 2nd hand, but you can find updated drivers for Win10 too.
Today this card have no competition - hehe among other things because there have been no development in soundcards after people began to believe the BS that you dont need a dedicated soundcard.
Sorry couldnt resist.

EDIT: If you decide to go for this mighty soundcard then do not (repeat: do not) use it for your Butt-thing. Because that would be a complete waste of all the good things this card can do for your ears.

 

Buttkickers don't need the fidelity of a high-end soundcard, so any 5.1 or 7.1 will be sufficient.

If you're using telemetry to drive the buttkickers, then you'll want both motherboard & a soundcard to drive the speakers/headphones. If you're just driving the buttkickers with sound, then splitting a single sound card is sufficient (but you really, really want the telemetry source).

 

If I understand you right then you intend to use some kind of "gaming headset" for the listening audio.
I dont want to sound patronizing at all but if you dont wanna use some reasonable headphones (Im not talking about some highend audiophile HPs) then my Auzen proposal is waste of money.
On some rather simple gaming headsets you dont have a chance to hear what the Auzen can offer.
Just saying

EDIT: As example in the racing sim with the best 7.1 surround sound(IMO) Raceroom its night and day to experience what a good soundcard and headphones can do - compared to a simple headset + MB Sound.

 

Depends on the motherboard. Some like ASUS ROG onboard audio support independent audio output for back and front (HP) outputs.

For audiophile quality external USB devices are better than audio cards.

 

Im behaving myself here so I dont call this BS.
And I dont want to use much time argumenting against such a complete untrue comment.
Just say that you as example cannot fine a socalled USB "soundcard" with so high Dynamic Range and so low Distortion as example the best Auzen, Creative and Asus cards.
Conserning features its 2 different worlds.
Hehe just check a picture with a USB sound stick against a real soundcard.

 

Just to chime in:
PCI(-E) advantages: lower latency, higher bandwidth, adding ports directly to the standard PC back/front-plates
USB advantages: Can be plugged into different PCs or Laptops, lower risk of magnetic fields interfering

The internals of both can be identical. Quality etc all depends on what the actual internal are.
I have both for recording stuff. PCI-E card got some very low but detectable base noise on microphones when gain is a bit higher and also some very slight base noise on the headphones.
The USB one (both from ESI btw) doesn't have any base noise but the latency can become a pain when recording.

/bashing of either closed

 

Review: 8 Best soundcards overall.
I dont see many USB sticks in this review.

Searching in the specs for different USB soundsticks its close to impossible to find figures for noise/distortion.
I wonder why?

 

Who said anything about sticks?
I have been in computer audio hobby for quite long time, no internal card on the market can compete with external DAC with its own dedicated PSU and isolated circutry.
My current choices are Auralic Vega and Yulong Sabre DA8, the latter is more budgetary friendly and also sports passable headphone amp, great for someone looking for one box solution.
Async USB receivers are really good nowadays, inferior isochronous usb audio is mostly over and not used by most manufacturers.
And you are not looking for reviews on such devices in computer magazines.
But I am afraid it's completely different level and perhaps an overkill for Turtle Beach headset/mp3 users.

 

This has gotten out of hand....the OP just wants something to run his tactile.

Question, how many kickers are you planning to run? Thats how many channels you will need. For kickers there's no need whatsoever for high end sound. For example I run 2 kickers off a cheap 2 channel external soundcard with no problems whatsoever. Don't bother with simvibe, get simhub software instead, its donationware and is much more flexible than simvibe. It can also run kickers from multiple soundcards if you ever need to add more.

 

So you're just running 2 kickers then? Thats simple, all you need is a stereo output, a channel for each kicker. If I were you I would just use a USB stick/card and use your onboard sound for headphones and speakers (I do exactly the same as you are suggesting, split the output and choose between speakers or headphones). Connect the left and right output from the USB soundcard to L & R input on your buttkicker amp.

For example, I use this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/UGREEN-Ext...id=1550532773&sr=8-13&keywords=usb+sound+card

Download simhub software and install, it already has profiles for most games but is also very configurable to individual needs. You can also use it to run dashboards and a ton of other stuff.....

https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/simhub-diy-sim-racing-dash.121578/