calling Nerds!

hey. getting a new pc. where is the cheapest place to go?

??

In Nelson???

Well, you're not entirely likely to get a helpful reply with a "calling" like that are you.

I recommend Noel Leeming's. They're "real" cheap.

I heard Otara markets do good deals.

if you walk into any big office they have all these laptops on display you can just choose what you want and walk out with it. you dont even have to pay upfront! just call your local police station to arrange easy payment

lol

Get the Trade And Exchange-Theres heaps of computers for sale at reasonable prices new and second hand.

Of the "off the shelf" vendors, I'd go for the PC company (50 Cook Street) zeist. I was fairly impressed with the specs of their machines. Nice and fast, generous ammount of RAM (only PC-133 SDRAM but hey), good graphic and sound cards. The best thing about PC Company is that they're not trying to sell you last years junk at this years prices.

The only component I wasn't all that enamoured with was their screens. Quality and pricewise, I'd go for Viewsonic. Excellent screens.

Some of their staff are "sales people" and not all that technically competent but there are a couple of techies (if thats your bag). The guy I talked to was Jason (white guy, long hair, does cartman voice) He knows his stuff.

Yeah, I built my own PC, but bought all my stuff from www.e-one.co.nz. Dodgy, not awesome service, and not for newbies, but goddam cheap and the guy who runs it (Tim) is more than happy to give VIP prices if you buy >$1000 stuff.

Yay ViewSonics! I love mine - I got a 17" flat PF775 from a mate for $750 when I bought my PC and it's amazing. Can't go back to non-flatscreen now.

why is flatscreen so good anyhoo?
i heard theres less radiation, ..anything else?

btw i thaught nerd was a welcomed term from nerds... ? is it not? i checked out e-1.co.nz a while ago.. works well...

anymore people?

ARE you from nelson transtemporal?

It looks better! Also, the reflection-glare tends to be reduced. Mainly it's just sexier to look at though.

(Transtemp lives in AK)

cause fuck theyre heaps more expensive ehy!

I got the PF790 19" perfectflat voice. Unfortunately mine cost $1400 and that was at cost. Terrific monitor though. Probably a shade better than my Phillips Brilliance at work even!

Zeist, I think flatscreens are good because a) they cut down on reflection glare (as voice said) and b) they have a really good depth of colour, i.e. blacks are really black, whites are white and colours are brighter. Great resolution as well. You can really tell the difference when you watch a DVD.

I do live in AK zeist but I'm originally from Nelson. Whys that?

You slut transtemp - I hate you! Those PF790's are fucking amazing! I dislike Philips monitors now. Sure, they're cheap and they're pretty 'standard' around the consumer market, but I don't think they put much effort into even their flatscreen range.

I guess for a monitor they are pretty well priced.

I still maintain that flatscreens are good value for money.

I just upgraded my PC, and got great service from a shop in birkenhead "IT Serve", the prices were cheap for sure....i've found "Global computers" had cheap prices too, not sure how good there systems are though....

Warehouse Stationary... why pay full price

Haha, excellent idea. *grin*

It's hard buying pre-made systems from school PC shops. Too often they are cheap, but are shipped with shitty components (e.g. shitty motherboards, shitty sound cards and things that break). it's hard for the newbie user to know what's good and what's not, unfortunately. It's hard for me even, and I'm supposed to know about this stuff.

For this reason, sometimes I suggest people pay the extra for prepackaged PCs such as HPs, Dells and Compaqs - even though they are expensive. They usualyl ship with good parts, and have better support when things go wrong - which is useful if you don't have mates who can help out if things break.

I like your ways voice!

I find when people go out and get a new puter from some local store (built in store/custom make up), they always use dodgy as hell hardware. Once you get it home it takes a lot of tuning and working on before its running well.

Now if anybody ever comes for advice I point them in the direction oh HP, Dell, Compaq etc. Two reason for this. One when I have to go around there to fix it, I know the drivers are going to be easy to get off the net when they have lost all their install CD's. And secondly because they will be happy with their buy, thus trusting you, which mean when they have any problems, you get the call and you make some extra dosh!!!

Sorry for my long rambling sentence, not in the mood to sort it out

I always buy each piece seperately only way you know for sure you have the best shit.

Trapper: Me too - but I'm a purist, who likes the best and is interested in it, and understands the hardware on the most part.

For most people that's a tall order. Explaining to someone how 128MB of RAM /can/ be better than 256MB of RAM is often a big task, and so prepackaged PCs are sensible I reckon.

Agreed with the driver stuff TheCross - good point.

Good point cross, nothing worse than being stuck with dodgy hardware that doesn't have very good driver support. Mind you, creative is well known and has crappy support for my Jukebox.

Do you guys know anything or heard anything about Times Computers?

http://www.timescomputers.co.nz/

They're offering a well specced machine at a price that seems almost too good to believe. Check out: http://www.timescomputers.co.nz/System3.htm

Yeah www.pp.co.nz have some really cheap well specced machines (ex monitor, of course). (Just checked their site and they're updating it so stuff isn't online-grr)

Creative labs suck dick. I won't een START raving about the problems I'm having with my Soundblaster Live 5.1 in Win2k. GrrrRRRRRRR. Terrible driver support.

That PC at Times looks pretty good, but again, they haven't listed the brands and specs of all the parts, unfortunately - so like a lot of PC places, you never know exactly what you're getting. Still, go the AMDs.

re: raving about creative. You already did in that thread about the Jukebox, remember? Ha ha!

I've learnt to look at the specs of the components and infer what the brands and models are. Imagine the surprise of the guy at PCCompany when I told him who the supplier of their GeForce cards was!

Heheh, indeed. *laughs* Yeah, I realised I'd had a rave about them, but the saga gets much, much deeper. *narrows eyes* Those bastards.

Damn generic NVidia cards - they're everywhere. Some are good, and some are atrociously bad.

OI! I wnat a geforce card.. whose the supplier??? ehy?

um... so if anyone wants to drop me a line about the place to get reeeeel cheap hardware- zeimon@drumnbass.co.nz [there will b somethin in it for ya ;]

It was 'Power and Color' zeist but thats no use to us because they're an OEM only supplier I think.

I'd go for a leadtek geforce zeist, cheap, fast with good features. O.K. driver support (but nvidias is better anyway). Any manufacturer preferences for graphics cards voice?

Yeah, never install the OEM drivers - always install the NVidia detonator reference drivers. The cards have to be made so close to an NVidia reference spec anyway that there isn't much latitude that the card makers have.

Leadtek are good I reckon, good value. I have an MSI 8815 (GeForce 2 GTS DDR) which got really good reviews at the time. If you've got the time and energy check some reviews. Do a search for "geforce card roundup". They love the term "roundup" in hardware places.

Otherwise, there isn't much to separate the cards, given they all run the same core NVidia chip and so the board is limited. If you're really anal, check the RAM access times and stuff, but otherwise, I reccomend going for OEM cards. Retail packs rip you off for software you don't want or need usually, in my opinion. Sorry I can't be any more help on brands - some are just so expensive, it's hard to tell whether they are good or not.

TV-Out can be fun too.... esp. if you're gonna get a DVD drive. A lot of manufacturers are including an S-Video TV-out (although you need a newish TV or a dodgy adapter to use S-Video).

Transtemp: Power and Color or Powercolor? Powercolor make some dodgy cards eh. But cheap! And apparently there are a few good ones in the litter... Maybe Power & Color are another company.

Oopsy, Powercolor not Power and Color!

Nice choice of video card voice, I love MSI stuff. Nice and stable and well engineered.

I would say that there are differences between the cards depending on how many features they've tried to pack on the board, where the fan is etc etc. All of these can affect its performance although only if you're nerdy enough to worry about the extra 3-6 fps!

Still though, fast memory is highly desirable on video cards. If its too slow, you may as well have bought the card below and saved yourself some cash!

I've got the Leadtek Winfast GeForce2 Ultra 64mb DDR. Dunno what the model number is though. Has a TV and a DVI output. TV outs a bit dodgy unfortunately! The important thing is that it gives me 98fps at 1280x1024 (all highest settings) in q3!

Fancy posting the specs of your machine here voice? I was thinking of using mine as my signature! How nerdy would that be?!

Very... very.. very nerdy!

-----------------------------
1Ghz P3 256Mb 30Gb CDR Laptop

Yeah, I'm pissed off about my machine as I got it like 6 months ago and then the bottom dropped out of the market and prices dropped sooo much. And I'm a student so I had a vaguely limited budget. I don't game excessively really - no enough time during semesters.

Anyway

AMD Athlon 1.2GHZ (@1.2 currently) (266fsb version)
256MB Infineon PC133 SDRAM @CAS2
Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm, 2MB buffer, 20GB HDD
MSI Geforce2 GTS 32MB DDR w/ Detonator 21.83's (couldn't afford an Ultra or 64MB at the time )
Dodgy CNet 10/100 network card.
Viewsonic 17" flat PF775 monitor (love that dot pitch!)
Creative Soundblaster Live Digital Entertainment 5.1 (grrrr at Creative)
Pioneer 105S (firmware cracked) 40x/16x slot-loading DVDROM
Jazz Speakers 9906 surround sound system (four speakers + center + sub) - pretty good value.
Shitty 300W PSU I want to get rid of. And shitty Imac look case that looks sexy, but has the worst fucking cooling ever. GRRRR.
Oh, and a shitty Blue Orb on the Nvidia, and a decent GlobalWin FOP32 fan on the AMD (w/ Arctic silver etc)

Now THAT's nerdy. *laughs* Gezz, that RAM was cheap at $260 when I bought it! Now... it costs $80. FUCKKK. The whole thing cost me $4k when I got it. I think I worked out the other day I could buy it all for about $2500 now. Damn. proabbly shouldn't have spent so much money anyway, but I /needed/ a PC for university.

Actually, I think I forgot a "-------------------" somewhere. *grin*

Oh yeah, forgot to add my support to transtemp's comments on RAM speed. That's the essential reason my card runs slwoer than I think it should - the GTS style cards I think had a lot slower RAM (on average) than the Ultra cards, although it varied by manufacturer I suppose. And 32MB doesn't feel like enough for heavily textured games (e.g. Max Payne) at times. I tend to stick to 1024x768 and don't look at the fps.

get a mac

sigh..

Yeah, it's all very sad isn't it? *laughs*

Hey Dave, no fair! You're not supossed to be cruising these parts of the site! Hardware nerds only huick huick *snort*

Voice, thats basically all there is to the ultra cards - faster memory! I'll post my measurements... er I mean specs when I get home!

Hehehe. *laughs* Fuckin' hell. If we could only password threads... muhahaha.

Oh yeah, e-mail! and IM! Oh but then no-one would be able to hassle/mock our geekdom and drive us back to the sane world of dance music. Hey, umm, actually lately it hasn't been very sane if Biggie is anything to go by....

Nice webcams on your site dude

Bloody hell, I basically copied and pasted your specs and changed some of the words!

AMD Athlon 1.2GHZ @ 1.2
MSI-6330 mobo (rev 2, 133 fsb)
256MB Century PC133 SDRAM @ CAS3
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 45 (7200rpm, 2MB buffer, 40GB HDD)
Leadtek Winfast Geforce2 GTS Ultra 64MB DDR w/ original drivers (yes, these have so far been faster than the detonator drivers! not that I've installed the new ones)
Viewsonic 19" perfectflat PF790 monitor
Creative Soundblaster Live Platinum w/ live drive (smartest thing ever invented on sound cards)
Acer ? (firmware cracked) 40x/16x DVDROM
Acer ? 8x4x32 CDR/RW
Studio PCTV
Dodgy Generic Compaq 10/100 network card
Shitty 300W PSU I want to get rid of
Adequate tower case

I think the only thing that lets the system down is probably the mobo/processor not being at 266fsb. The PC Company claim its at 200fsb but wcpuid reports it at 133. It couldn't be 266 anyway because I don't think the processor is an Athlon-C!

Isn't spec swapping fun??! huick huick *snort*

Oopsy, at the moment I have the dumbass speakers that came with the thing, Midiland, or some crap. Fortunately, I have it hooked up to my Technics stereo which sounds much gruntier!

I'm after some new ones at some stage, maybe those creative 5.1 DTT3500 jobs or the Klipsch ProMedia 4.1. Any recommendations?

hehe, that's a pretty goddam awesome system. Not sure what those MSI motherbaords are like - what chipset is it? I suspect it's probably the dubious qualiity Via KT133A like mine. I hate Via now. Grrr.

Yeah, CPUs use a dodgy multiplying process to go from 133 -> 266 from the memory bus to the FSB - so maybe wcpuid is reporting the unmultiplied speed or something? I always forget how it works, but I assume if you processor is a 200MHz FSB Athlon it does a dodgy multiplying process to go from 133 -> 200. In the olden days the memory bus speed used to be fixed exactly to the FSB speed, but now it's different right?

I get a tad confused here and have never really sorted it out in my brain - especially when you factor in DDR SDRAM, whcih is now cheap enough to be viable incidentally. Just need to wait for a decent chipset? :-/

Those Creative ones look alright - I think I was looking at the 2500 set when I got my Jazz's, and the Jazz speakers were much better value for money. They're nothing exceptional really, but they do the job. I'm still annoyed that there isn't a default high pass filter on the satellites though. When playing CDs and mp3s, the satellites attempt to replicate the bass, and sound pretty shitty at times. The SB Live doesn't filter that kind of stuff properly in it's output either, which fucks me off - even if you have Bass redirection turned on. Grrr.

But yeah, sorry don't really have many recommendations. I'm kinda annoyed with my system at the moment. Spent lots of money, and it doesn't quite go perfectly as I'd like.

so whats a good motherboard? [good value&quality]

simpill

Depends on what type of processor and RAM you're trying to put in it Zeist! And whether you want to be able to upgrade the processor and keep the mobo/motherboard.....

Yeah voice, the mobo has the KT133a chipset which is O.K. Perfectly functional, even if in retrospect it looked a bit like a 'stopgap' measure. I never bothered figuring out the system bus deal either. But you're right, it does seem a bit dodgy.

For example, wcpuid reports the system bus at 133mhz and the memory bus at 266 (which I assume is that double-pumped thingy) which is silly anyway because the mobo doesn't support DDR RAM and SDRAM won't go that high. Go figure.

I think I'm leaning towards the Klipsch cos they have awesome sound (nice bass too) and I resent creatives monoploy!

Voice is right zeist, your question is a wide open!

However, I personally would go for a AMD processor and SDRAM (PC133 or PC150) combo because its as good, if not better than the intel (P3, P4) and SDRAM equivalent and cheaper (normally by several hundred dollars). Hell, even the AMD Duron ('low end') processors give P4 a run for its money!

The only problem with this combo is AMD chipsets (motherboards). The recent ones have all had performance issues. Not show-stopping issues, just little niggling things they should have solved.

With regards to getting a board that will let you upgrade to a new processor, I wouldn't make it your sole criteria. Given the rate of advancement of processor packaging/chipsets/memory solutions, by the time you realistically get around to upgrading, your particular processor packaging will probably no longer be made! (The processor packaging is the type of connection it uses to the motherboard. Typically called 'Slot 1', 'Slot A', 'FCPGA' or similar)

These are some things I WOULDN'T buy:

Any mobo/processor/memory combination of Pentium 4 and RDRAM (Rambus). Prohibitively expensive and barely able to match older P3/SDRAM or AMD/SDRAM solutions. Marketed as a 'high end' server solution but in actual fact quite crap.

At the moment, I would hesitate to buy Pentium 4 in general. Not because it isn't good. It is. Its just that these processors haven't come into their own yet. They will, but only around the 2-3Ghz mark (where they'll pretty much leave eveything behind).

I wouldn't buy DDR RAM either because it isn't significantly faster than traditional SDRAM solutions (its good, and cool but not really faster). This might be fixed by subsequent chipset implementations but at the moment it isn't worth the slightly higher cost IMO.

End transtemporal nerdy hardware spiel.

Get Rambus Chips.. They kick ass! But they ain't cheap.

And a Logic soundcard

Dost thou mock my nerdly words o' most Phunky Dave? May thou be forever be locked into ever steeper upgrade paths and pointless end-user agreements!

And be forced to play a 'monk' in Dungeons and Dragons games!

How about: May thou be subjected to compulsory memorisation and understanding of ever changing OEM license agreements.

Ouch. Thats just inhuman Dave!

Heheh, yeah, I agree with pretty much all of transtemp's posts. Howver, DDR doesn't cost that much extra now, through my supplier I can get a 256MB DIMM for $120+GST - but again, there has been no clear leading DDR chipset come out yet, and I refuse to go anywhere near Via's KT266 'upgraded' model of the KT133A. Grrr.

I'd probably still go for DDR if I was starting afresh, especially if I was going for a P4 or an Athlon XP - these faster processors really get limited by lack of memory bandwidth. I guess it's optional with Athlon C's and below.

Mmmmm, end-user licenses. Can't remember ever having one of them. Nah, just kidding.

Everything happening in hardware at the moment feels like a stopgap measure between the current generation of machines and the next generation. It seems like the groundwork theory has been laid for how these machines will work, but no-ones really put the components together in a way that they can take to market.

I'm hoping by the time I get round to upgrading, the Athlon XP/DDR/blah blah chipset systems will be mature enough to have ironed out the teething problems!

Although I predict in two years we'll have 3ghz machines and 512Mb DDR as standard, and yet windows (whatever incarnation we're up to by then) will STILL take up half that memory!

affermative/responding

Hehe, yeah, I reckon 1GB DDR will be standard within a year and a half, esp. if the semiconductor prices remain relatively low in the wake of the US economy's 'issues'.

But yes, I'm waiting for maturity (and money) too. However, byt the time one chipset is mature, a new processor set has come out ... and then you want to wait till those are mature.... And so the neverending (futile) cycle continues.

Thats true, but you're not going to drop a mature, well-performing solution as soon as a new chipset comes along! That would be silly. Typically, it takes 6 months to a year before they iron out all the kinks. And even then...

I think the only truly mature chipset that has come out in a decade has been the 440BX! If it weren't for the anachronicity of the 440BXs featureset, it would still in use because of its performance and stability. Only now are there solutions that significantly outperform it!

Performance? Euuck. They were doggish in some aspects, although I was nver a real Intel boy, and I dropped out of the hardware loop for a few years so didn't have that much experience with them.

I wish AMD would get someone good to esign a chipset for their processors. Market leader Via is a joke - I hear the KT266 has got data corruption issues now as well. Gezz.

Makes you want to cry. Especially as I /still/ have SBLive! problems. At the moment my games are crackle/pop free, my DVDs are almost crackle free, and the video is in sync with the SPDIF output (a little slow though), but my mp3s and regular Windows sound type stuff (e.g. Flash) are fucked. Grr.

No no, seriously. Sure you had to overclock the fuck out of 440BX to get the better performance but the fact remained that an old, outdated chipset could outperform a new one! Toms pointed this out again and again. Of course, they don't use that comparison anymore but for ages, it was king!

You're right about the KT266. Dodgy as fuck. I've read various articles about issues. The latest one has MSI recalling all their recent KT266 based boards. One is reminded of 'caminogate' a couple of years ago with intel. What a debacle that was!

Yeah, fair enough comments there. *grumbles about Intel processors geneally* *then grumbles about AMD's hot running processors*

My Athlon-C is impossible to cool properly. Grrr.

Hmm, well at least all this bullshit going down in the hardware arena is enough to scare my off 'upgrading'. I can't afford it, especially if I intend to continue my 'club' lifestyle and to move out of home. Damn being a student.

I'm always dubious of MSI really. I know I have an MSI vid card (but only because it got goddam good reviews and it was so cheap when I got it) but I heard some dodgy stuff about older MSI boards, such as the Celeron boards and and Slot 1 montrosities.. I heard that some of them were as bad as A-Trend! *gasps*

Hey, I didn't add that to my specs sheet did I?
Mobo: Soltek 75-KAV Socket A mobo, w/ shitass-whore KT133A chipset.

Features:
* Chipset corrupts data at will.
* Chipset will have new driver set released every 3 days.
* Chipset will not function alongside market-leader's soundcards. No excuses offered.
* Chipset manufacturer will refuse to even work with Creative to solve issues, each side blames the other. Via - "Non adherence to PCI standards! Bug hogging! PCI not designed for high bandwidth soundcards with realtime requirements! Bitch! Moan! Not our fault!" Creative - "Fuck around with your PCI latency settings. Reinstall your OS. Several times. Do everything but e-mail our support team. Download the latest drivers (which make it worse not better)." Bastards.
* BIOS updates will change the startup screen dramataically in every update for no apparent reason.

Bah, it's a good board overall. I'm just bitter, about the KTl33A and Creative. I don't know who to blame either, but I'm leaning toward Creative culpability at the moment.

Anyway, where's the light at the end of the tunnel for chipsets? The death of PCI? PCI2.0? SCSI *scoff*? The end of IDE? Sheesh.

how about firewire ports? can you use much hardware these days via firewire? eg soundcard/vid card/ data transfer from camera ????

im thinking about getting a 3port firewire pci adapter card. is thay teh good?

simpill

Firewire / i.Link / IEEE1394 (all the sam thing) is really good technology, but isn't in widespread use just yet, apart from on digital video cameras which need the high bandwidth.

Basically it's an alternative to USB as far as I understand it, a faster and better alternative. The PCI cards are still quite expensive though, and unless you've got devices using it already, what's the point in buying one of these cards?

An alternative which might be worth thinking about if you need/want FireWire is a Soundblaster Audigy card. They have a single FireWire port as well as being a damn good soundcard (assuming you don't get driver conflicts). I wouldn't reccommend buying one of these if you've got XP though. They seem to have 'issues'. Oh yeah, and I hate Creative Labs so don't buy one. Got that?

Geez voice, you've had troubles galore! What do you do with your machine to punish it so much? Human genome modelling?

My machine falls over occasionally with no explanation but nowhere near the problems you've had/having! I have had a few issues with the PCI slots but I found that swapping the cards around and playing with the IRQs worked a treat! I don't know why it worked but it did.

Zeist, totally agree with voice. Firewire is a great technology. Like USB, but much faster. I don't know why it hasn't been adopted en masse. Probably some sort of Wintel grudge against Macintosh? Who knows. Its essential if you want to do any video editing.

Any of you guys had a play with Tyan's Dual AMD setup? comments?

Firewire is interestingly not that expensive.... just checked out the Adaptec AFW-4300-KIT, and its only $165+GST A USB 2.0 card is only $10 cheaper.

Yeah zapf, thats the other thing. Firewire isn't really that expensive. That card you just mentioned is quite a good one although you can get them from Dick Smiths for $135.

Haven't played with the Tyan Dual AMD though. I find a single 1.2Ghz processor good enough for now.

I wonder if it would be better than the Dual Pentium? At one stage I was looking at a dual pentium but there wasn't a huge overall increase in speed (about 33% with dual P3's) and it was only really useful for programs that took advantage of MP (multiprocessor) setups and massively multitasking machines like servers and render machines.

F'en expensive, but very cool, at least theoretically from a comp sci perspective. The algorhtms that are involved are immense, but I'm yet to see someone recommend Windows as an OS capable of harnessing all the power of MP setups. Maybe Win2k MP is better. I'm not sure.

Well I haven't had that many problems in the scheme of things transtemp - just the one with the sound corruption issues, it's just that solving it is a ) time consuming b) and bitch and c) apparently impossible! other than that my PC is rock solid, and under Win2K is yet to crash. Yes I have never crashed this system or had to reboot it due to any kind of fuckups. Go win2k! And that's including gaming, running some decent @Risk models in Excel, using Maple to render bitchy graphs and solve massive sets of linear equations and doing a whole lot of C++, Java and other crazy stuff. It's excellent. System runs hot though, due to bad airflow in the case and a shitty single fan PSU.

1.2GHz is way more than I need too most of the time, hence me not overclocking as of yet.

I have always been a fan of Dual systems. A while ago Abit has a board that takes dual Celerons. Which is a very cheap dual cpu solution. Currently I am still using my Dual Celeron 400 with a Promise card runing Raid 0. Have been running NT since I had it... its stable as too. Will be switching to Win2k when I can be bothered.

Trans,
I don't know if dual AMD will be better than dual Pentium but I know for a fact is that its much cheaper! Plus you'll find the PC responds much faster when underload because of the dual processing ability.

Voice,
Get a few 10cm fans and you'll be sweet ;o)

Yeah, but I have no room in the back of my case, and the style of case I have doesn't lend well to cutting holes in the sides.

Zapf, I imagine dual Athlon would be ultra-fast and pretty cheap but again, I'm not running a database server or a render farm. If I was, I'd definitely get one!

voice - your making me nervous, i've got a soltek 75-KAV motherboard, and am looking a new soundcard, mainly to play MP3 out through the stereo. The onboard sound is driving me crazy, with its hiccups. I vainly though that a 1gig atlon with 256meg of ram would cope with mp3 via onboard....i was looking at these turtle beach santa cruz cards, anyone got one of these??

They look good ah, but I wasn't sure how they coped with Dolby 5.1 and EAX and Direct3D in games and stuff. Depends on whether you're into that stuff.

Incidentally, I had no problems with my SbLive under Win98 - I put it down to Creative not being able to write good drivers. The hardware interface is markedly different in 2K though, so it could be just exposing a problem that was already there.

I'm not sure what your issue is with the onboard sound - it should be able to handle that. I trust you've tried different drivers etc. You could just go for a really cheap PCI card or something. I know several people who can do mp3 etc fine with a regular Yamaha PCI card or similar...

the reviews really raved (!) about it....
I mainly have problems when using PCDJ and Fruity Loops where processing power is required too...I wanted to keep away from a really cheap card, just go for something cheapish that will sound good when I pump it through the stereo...

Fair enough. Yeah, all the reviews raved about the SBLive 5.1 too. They ae good cards with a good processor on the surface, but they can't hide the terrible support on Creative's part, and the fact that they are in a dominant position in the market at the moment. Their support is terrible, and it is atrocious that the problems have gone on.

Have a look in alt.soundcards.creative.sblive or something similar (not sure if that's the right address) and take a look at what people are saying about the Audigy if you're concerned.

Having said that, they're virtualyl giving away the SBLive DE Special Editions at the moment... Dolby 5.1 output for like $150...! Again, my problems have only been with Win2k.

Make sure you've got the latest Via 4-in-1 drivers and have flashed the BIOS for your 75-KAV though...