Will Prelude give me problems?

[nkyg]

Hello,

My first post, pleased to meet you

I’ve been reading lots of glowing reviews about the Auzen X-fi Prelude sound card and would like to know just how dramatically different its likely to be in terms of resource handling to a Creative X-Fi – being that the chipset is the same and the drivers are Creative Labs modifications.

The reason is I’ve been struggling with my X-Fi ExtremeMusic since the day I bought it, with constant issues that (without going into detail) all seem to relate to hardware resources.

On my ASUS M2N-SLI-DELUXE mobo I’ve got 2 Geforce 7600GTs in SLI mode, one Nebula TV card, and one X-Fi, AMD X2 4600+, 2GB RAM, 1 SATA HDD, Win XP.

The PC is stable with SLI and no X-Fi, and stable with the X-Fi and 1 GPU.

I’ve tested the X-Fi in other systems and it has always seemed to fight with the GPU. I’ve even had Creative replace the card. After many hours spent, I’m resigned to conclude that the graphics cards and the X-Fi are simply not friends.

Assuming this to be true, I’ve always wondered whether it is because I’m simply demanding too much from the motherboard – by having a powerful audio processor as well as 2 GPUs and a TV card, or whether this can ultimately be blamed on the X-Fi’s design.

So as a general sort of question: In my position would you risk the money on the widely considered “better” Auzen X-Prelude, knowing it has the same chipset and likely similarly designed drivers, but confident that the differences in circuit board design will be enough for it to run without issue?

Or would you take a different view?

Many Thanks,
Nick

[b1lk1]

Your problem is the IRQ sharing and I think, altough I am not sure, that the Auzentech may do the same thing. There is a member here, Robscix, and he knows more about this stuff than anyone else I have ever met. Wait for his answer before trusting my answer.