# 7.1 Sound Card Compatability Question



## Owker (Jul 15, 2014)

Hello, I just got a razer 7.1 tiamat 2 weeks ago and I felt it's kidna of a waste to pay 250$ for a headset and then use it with the casual stock awful 5.1(I'm guessing) sound card that comes with the motherboard.I'm looking towards getting a really good 7.1 sound card but I'm not sure if what I wanna get is compatible with my motherboard, some say it is PCI and some say it is PCI-Express.I have an Intel BGP6710J motherboard, and I was looking at Creative Labs 70SB088600002 SoundBlaster X-FI Titanium Fatal1ty Pro PCIe Sound Card and Creative Labs SB X-FI Titanium Fatal1ty Champ PCIe Sound Card (70SB088600007) and HT OMEGA CLARO Plus+ 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI Interface Sound Card, which one is compatible with my motherboard?And if they all are, which one do you advise me to get?Knowing that I'll be using it for gaming mostly but I still want a really good high-end sound for music and movies, thanks a lot in advance!


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## FreedomEclipse (Jul 15, 2014)

watch the setup guide










It pretty much explains what the tiamat is capable of.


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## Owker (Jul 15, 2014)

Yea I know what it's capable of and that I need a 7.1 dedicated sound card, but what I asked for is to check what sound cards my mother board is compatible with


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## FreedomEclipse (Jul 15, 2014)

Unless youre still running a PC with ISA slots on the motherboard or a micro ATX or ITX board where expansion slots are limited then there shouldnt be a problem at all.


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## Cybrnook2002 (Jul 16, 2014)

I have an awesome deal on a basically brand new Sound Blaster ZXR card in my FS thread. Would drive your cans perfectly.


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## FreedomEclipse (Jul 16, 2014)

Cybrnook2002 said:


> I have an awesome deal on a basically brand new Sound Blaster ZXR card in my FS thread. Would drive your cans perfectly.



I can vouch for the Creative's SB-Z/Zx/ZxR's awesomeness. 

OP if youre a gamer, id stay away from Asus soundcards. Directional audio isnt as great on them cards as creatives and if youre gonna run older titles then that might cause more headaches because Asus's drivers are bad, Youre lucky to get 1 driver release a year and when they do they fix one or two minor issues to do with features that nobody in their right mind would ever use. 

There are 3rd party drivers available, but there's only so much they can do to fix issues. I was running a Xonar STX at one point and ARMA II, GuildWars CS:S, TF2, L4D - Literally any game that used the source engine and all these random audio anomalies were just ruining the game and it made them unplayable. 

The drivers need to be coded/tweaked to better handle 3D audio. 


I went back to creative around last christmas and I have been happy ever since.


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## avatar_raq (Jul 16, 2014)

The sound blaster z/zx/zxr cards are only 5.1. The tiamat is 7.1.


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## Dent1 (Jul 16, 2014)

Owker said:


> Hello, I just got a razer 7.1 tiamat 2 weeks ago and I felt it's kidna of a waste to pay 250$ for a headset and then use it with the casual stock awful 5.1(I'm guessing) sound card that comes with the motherboard.I'm looking towards getting a really good 7.1 sound card but I'm not sure if what I wanna get is compatible with my motherboard, some say it is PCI and some say it is PCI-Express.I have an Intel BGP6710J motherboard, and I was looking at Creative Labs 70SB088600002 SoundBlaster X-FI Titanium Fatal1ty Pro PCIe Sound Card and Creative Labs SB X-FI Titanium Fatal1ty Champ PCIe Sound Card (70SB088600007) and HT OMEGA CLARO Plus+ 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI Interface Sound Card, which one is compatible with my motherboard?And if they all are, which one do you advise me to get?Knowing that I'll be using it for gaming mostly but I still want a really good high-end sound for music and movies, thanks a lot in advance!




What are you trying to achieve as far as audio quality? What content will you be listing to? Without knowing what the soundcard is for or your expectations its hard to recommend you anything.




FreedomEclipse said:


> I can vouch for the Creative's SB-Z/Zx/ZxR's awesomeness.
> OP if youre a gamer, id stay away from Asus soundcards. Directional audio isnt as great on them cards as creatives and if youre gonna run older titles then that might cause more headaches because Asus's drivers are bad, Youre lucky to get 1 driver release a year and when they do they fix one or two minor issues to do with features that nobody in their right mind would ever use.
> There are 3rd party drivers available, but there's only so much they can do to fix issues. I was running a Xonar STX at one point and ARMA II, GuildWars CS:S, TF2, L4D - Literally any game that used the source engine and all these random audio anomalies were just ruining the game and it made them unplayable.
> The drivers need to be coded/tweaked to better handle 3D audio.
> I went back to creative around last christmas and I have been happy ever since.



I've been running an ASUS Xonar DS for a few years now, and the drivers have been solid, never had one issue. The drivers are infrequent but they work perfect. Why fix what works? However I've had Creative card prior and it was problematic. I actually only replaced my X-Fi Forte because of the driver problems, although admittedly it sounded better.  It was most frustrating because I replaced my Auzentech X-Meridian which also had infrequent but perfect drivers too for Creative and regretted it.

Saying that I harbour no real resentment, I would gladly try Creative again in the future. Maybe my issue was isolated, likewise I'm sure your ASUS issue was isolated.


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## FreedomEclipse (Jul 16, 2014)

avatar_raq said:


> Maybe my issue was isolated, likewise I'm sure your ASUS issue was isolated.




Negative on that one. I went through a Xonar D2X (many, many years back - when D2X's were considered to be the best soundcard money could buy and creative's consumers were left reeling by their bad drivers at the time) and STX which i had for at least 3years and ALWAYS had random sound anomalies with some older games. Part of the problem is down to the implementation of 3D surround or 'EAX' - I know some might say that EAX was more of a gimmick but the emulation was terrible and quite often it didnt work at all and caused all sorts of headaches like CTDs and some cases BSODs. Id get sound anomalies on some games that didnt even require EAX. In guildwars and CS:S Id hear battles, footsteps through walls or halfway across the map.

Final straw for me was when ARMA II a game i played a lot started developing really loud & distorted audio. I couldnt turn the ingame volume up or down, as it wouldnt respond to the options in the ingame menu. I tried different 3rd party drivers, still same problem. This anomaly only happened in ARMA II and no other game.  I finally gave up and went with an SB-Z which has been perfect. Ive had no issues with it with games old or new.


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## Owker (Jul 17, 2014)

I am basically going to use it for music and will use the 7.1 surround for Counter-Strike Global Offensive, but I would want to use the steroe for music and for other games like Dota2.I actually might end up upgrading to a z97 chip motherboard(Asus) and to an i7-4790k CPU


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