Logitech Z5450 with Onboard Sound card

Unless you have a new nvidia motherboard like a 570, 590, or 680i, you will have much better sound from a X-Fi card.

Unless you have Audiophille speakers and test equipment I think you will be hard pressed to hear much of a difference between the 2 setups. The only real advantage of add on sound cards is to take some of the sound processing duties off of the CPU and onto the dedicated processor on the Sound Card which will give you a couple for FPS in games. The other thing about the X-Fi cards is the added audio processing stuff for sound effects. Just note that if you are going to go with VISTA in the near future then all the additional sound effects from the Creative cards won't work under VISTA. Unless something dramatic has changed in the last week or so.

LOL very true, plus Sound is very subjective. What sounds good to me might not sound good to Mark Jo Henry Bob down the street. Some people are better at picking out distortion then others as well. Way too many factors to give a concrete answer

You could never have enough HD space!!

Nice increase. I can see that in FEAR. Very very graphic and sound intensive! I sure do like playing FEAR.

I can't say I believe this.

I can't say I believe this.

That does sound a little exaggerated. How many frames does WoW even have normally?..LOL..I can understand maybe fear. If you have poor components it will take some stress off your motherboard with the added sound card, but 20 FPS!?!?

Thanks for your help guys, yeah i think this is a hard subject to give advice on, Sound is tricky. I'll use the info to try and make an informed decision.

Creative Drivers

What the Hell are you talking about?

My upgrade path over the years has been onboard, SB Live, SB2 Audigy ZS, and X-Fi Platinum. Each time, I've heard a very measurable noticeable increase in audio quality. Right now, I'm using the Z-5450s with the X-Fi Platinum, and everything sounds crisp, beautiful, and full.

Since you have the rear wireless speakers even with a new sound card it wont be the best it can be. I have the logitech z5500 and I use onboard sound card and it sounds great. I also hook my ipod directly into it and its great. I tend to listen to alot of music and I would have prefered the z5450 but they didnt have the greatest reviews with gamers since the rear speakers are wireless.

Onboard audio tends to have a lower SNR. This is more apparent at higher volumes (I assume you buy a 200$+ surround sound system so you can actually turn up the volume sometimes). You'll hear plenty of crackling and hissing.
This is generally even more apparent when you try to use your onboard sound in 5.1 surround (or more channels) mode. If you're buying quality speakers, I'd recommend at least a 40$ Audigy 2/4 along with it.
I personally dont feel that the Xi-Fi is worthy of it's price tag if you mainly use it to listen to mp3s and game, but others will disagree.

if your a real gamer u use headph0nes not 5.1

i use z5450 for games and music and it sounds perfect company of heroes sounds so incredible but if i wanna play css and really wanna kill the suckers i use headphones