nvidia loses for the first time ever
but it's not a big deal. i'm not talking about a graphics card but rather their motherboard chipset (nforce4 slix16 intel edition to be specific). overall it is very nice. it's not as clean and polished as an intel chipset -- but what is? really .. nobody will ever be able to touch the incredible craftsmanship of the 915 or 955 or 975 (just for recent reference) but that's beside the point.
my problem with nforce4 is the built-in audio support. when i built this new rig, i didn't think ahead about the sound. this gigabyte board has 2x pci-e x16 and 2x x8 slots. that leaves room for a couple pci-e x4 and 1x pci. that pci was occupied with an ide controller since ide is being phased out in favor of sata and this board shows that.
my creative soundblaster audigy2 platinum was left out in the cold. i just decided to use the onboard nforce4 audio. i mean, ya know .. it's nvidia. how bad could it be? ........ first off i have a 4.1 400w logitech setup hooked into my computer. the onboard audio refused to play my rear speakers no matter what port or software configuration i tried. on top of that, the bass wasn't fulfilling. i wasn't impressed at all.
last night i yanked the ide card. now i'm short 900 gigs. in it's place i went ahead and upgraded my sound to the creative soundblaster x-fi platinum. grabbed it for $150 w/ my best buy employee discount. ........ god damn. immediately my speakers started to scream at me with such joy and inspiration. i swear to satan, slayer has never sounded so good. right now i'm listening to trivium, same deal .. so clear and crisp.
i love nvidia. but when it comes to anything audio .. creative wins. every time.