I just have the integrated SoundMAX whatever that came with my Dell. If anybody remembers the topic I had posted on GD a few weeks ago, I've been irritably noticing that my PC makes little scratching or high-pitched noises when I have headphones plugged in (which is all the time). Basically, if I scroll a page or delete something or do anything the computer makes little noise that gets really distracting on its own and especially so when I'm listening to music; I can always hear the little crackling or whatever in the left earphone.
So, you guys told me to get a new sound card. Well, I suppose I will but I don't know what to look for? I don't game much and my computer has 512MB of RAM (not sure if that's relevant). I pretty much listen to music all the time I'm on the computer, with these headphones.
Price is somewhat of a concern. It's a Christmas gift but I don't want to go too crazy. No 5.1 surround sound or something like that.

If you can spend about $120-$150 the Soundblaster X-Fi Extreme Music should be fine for you. Sounds great, and should last for a pretty long time.

If you can spend $50-$70 Soundblaster 2 ZS. Still a great soundcard, and if you can find it, it should be fairly cheap.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16829102002

Something like that good?
Also, short of opening my case how can I check if I have PCI slots or whatever?

Or do you think it would be worth it to spring for this one?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16829102011

Go to oldversion.com and download Everest Home. I'm pretty sure that program will tell you. Although, unless your computer is crazy old (like Pentium II or III), it should have at least one PCI slot.

I would go for the Audigy 4 over the other one, unless you're absolutely broke.

Price-wise, the Chaintech av-710 is your best bet for around 20 bucks on newegg. It has 7.1 sound but it's shit and if you get it you'd want to use the digital output from the line out. I had it set up with foobar as in the below link and it sounded great.

graphical set-up guide
http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=75655

Only thing is I'm not sure if it will run your headphones well without an amp. Search around on the boards or ask Bolt or something.

The outputs on the AV710 are pretty weak. You'll probably need to use an amp, but you could pick up a CMOY for like $20.

So then it would be worth it to just get the Audigy 4? I wouldn't need to get an amp with that one?
The Everest program says:
Expansion Capabilities PCI, USB
So I figure I have at least one. I would be screwing this into an open slot on the back of the tower, right? Not taking something out first? When I get the card should I turn off integrated sound or whatever?

Yeah, disable the integrated sound in the BIOS. If you game on this PC as well, you should notice an increase of about 4 FPS by offloading the sound from the motherboard. In any case, it avoids driver/hardware conflicts.

Depending on your system, you shouldn't have to open the case to find out if you have open slots. Just check the bays on the bottom-back of your system. If you have open bays, then there's most likely an open slot behind it. The only real exception (unless its the top slot and could be an AGP/PCI-E slot) is if you have a micro-atx motherboard in a standard atx case, in which case you'd have a few trailing bays at the bottom of the case.

Does that make any sense?

Alright, I have some slots.
I guess I'll go with the Audigy 4, unless someone can tell me why I shouldn't?

For what you want, it's a good, inexpensive card. My Audigy 2 has been more than ample, I got it for the very same purpose...to bypass the integrated "sound."

Edit: Speaking of which, I find it hilarious that my integrated audio has pretty poor output capabilities, yet my motherboard comes with two optical audio connections, so that I can get the absolute most out of it.

audigy 4 sucks, get the chaintech + amp if you really care

or, get this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16829121116
and use it with foobar and kernel streaming

Also, haven't tried this personally, but:
http://www.emu.com/products/product.asp?product=10447
It's about 100 bucks if I remember right and you don't need an amp for it.

I'd recommend something in the soundblaster X-Fi family, they sound good, I love mine.

After some research (if you can call it that), I'm going to go with this card because it seems perfect for my needs and is highly recommended. It also has a twenty dollar rebate. Just, uh...letting you guys know.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16829102188

Soundblaster is always (at worst) a pretty good choice. Some people will tell you about how SB sucks and this and that but I had my Audigy2 for a while and was totally satisfied with it (though I now think it's bass was waaayyy bloated after switching to Chaintech)

that was the worst choice you could have possibly made

it's not bad, if it's like 5 bucks.

Too late now!

Well, this thing is in my PC and I absolutely love it. It's like night and day compared to the integrated sound.
One problem. It's been in my computer 3 days and twice the computer has locked up/blue screen of death'd me and when I restart, the Windows site pops up to tell me that the driver I installed from the soundcard's CD is making my computer crash. What gives?
This is the full message:


What can I do to stop this?

Read the reviews of it:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16829102188

tells how to get rid of the bad driver problemos