is the soundblaster XFI sound system worth it?

Question

i got a $130 gift card to walmart, and i was wondering if i should get a XFI system for use in BF2, BF2142, ghost recon, and a lot of my newer games, i was also wondering if it makes a large impact on the game performance, i got an AMD 3000+ socket A processor, 2.1 GHz, 1.5 gigs of ram, an ATI X800 sapphire GTO with 256 MB of ram, its AGP 8x, my motherboard is stock with from what i can tell, a VIA chipset, at least a lot of the larger chips on the board have VIA on them. it has onboard 5.1 and im using it up to the max with my logitech x530 sound system. i also have a SATA hard drive, and 3 PCI slots, not PCIe. im running pc3200 ram but the mainboard is set to pc2700, or atleast thats what shipped with the computer.

Answer 1

I would recommend against it. It would improve performance just slightly, because it would take a slight load off the CPU, and of course you would notice a decent gain in sound quality over integrated sound. The reason I would recommend against it is because, no offense to your speakers, but they are not exactly top of the line, so no point in spending a huge amount of money on a sound card. I would say as a general rule there is little point in buying a sound card more expensive than the speakers you are going to use with it. I would recommend going with the Audigy SE, which they also sell at Wal-Mart, but at only $30.

Answer 2

yea, u'll notice the difference in sound.
it also makes a difference in how fast your coimptuer runs for some reason too.
i guess it takes some load off your CPU.