In most cases, the quality of sound that your PC produces is almost completely dictated by the quality of the speakers. The better the speakers, the clearer the sound, and the higher the signal to noise ratio, the better your audio sounds. Of course, it’s possible to have speakers which exceed the quality of your sound card, which is where products like the Creative SB Audigy series, and new Creative X-Fi come in. By delivering a more accurate and less noisy signal to the speakers, the sound has a higher range, with more subtlety, and ultimately can be amplified better.

A common mistake people make when matching soundcard and speakers however, is comparing signal to noise ratio. For example, a Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS has a SNR of 108dB (very good) and the Creative Inspire 5200 has 75dB SNR. It’s tempting to compare the two and make the statement “The Creative Inspire cannot take advantage of the Audigy 2 ZS’s high SNR”. Although in this example, the Inspire 5200 are grossly inferior speakers, this is due to frequency response, not SNR. SNR is a measurement of noise produced by the device, so the best way (not quite mathematically correct) to consider the relationship between sound card and speakers, is to add the two SNRs, but double the noise, as opposed to subtract the lower SNR from the higher, and call the remainder excess.


The best way to tell what type of card fits into your PC, is to check. The same applies to your memory problem. We will be able to explain your options if you give us your Chipset manufacturer and model. If you don’t know it, download CPU-Z (it's a small program that doesn't require installation. click here for a direct link to version 1.31 download, current 12/12/05), run it and click on the Motherboard tab.



It will also try to tell you what best option for graphics is in the Graphic Interface box bellow, but it’s better to get a human’s take on that. Post back, and we'll explain things