Reddit reviews Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D THX PCIE Fatal1ty Pro Sound Card SB1356

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you can get it for a hundred bucks new, now.

Proof

https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Blaster-Recon3D-Fatal1ty-SB1356/dp/B00654PTT2

BAM!

http://us.store.creative.com/Creative-Sound-Blaster-Recon3D-Fatal1ty-Professional/M/B00654PTT2.htm

Grab it off of Amazon or Ebay and experience the magic

Thanks so much. I'm definitely going to go with Stereo, however now I'm a bit confused with the connections going on. I'm specifically looking at these Fostexs. Do I need to have the DAC, or can I use the sound card I recently purchased?

Building computers started as a hobby. I was always able to play whatever I wanted with an $800ish Gateway computer (before they went to crap, sorry Gateway) back in the 1999-2005 era. Then Battlefield 2 came out, while I was in college, and I couldn't run it on my machine. It was a slideshow.

I knew there were things I could do to make a computer faster, but I didn't know what exactly each thing "did". More RAM = faster computer? Did I need to overclock? Do graphics cards matter that much? Those were my thoughts back in 2005, and I did a bit of research and decided that for the money I had to spend, I needed a new graphics card and twice the amount of RAM as I had before. I looked up guides online (which were more sparse back then) on how to swap out a graphics card, how to install RAM, which I'd done years before, but had no idea what type of RAM I needed, or what speed was worth buying, or how much I wanted to shoot for. After some research, I went to Best Buy and grabbed what I needed.

I spent the afternoon with the computer case open on my bed in my apartment room, figuring out what wires I needed to move (probably none, but I was started from near-scratch with my knowledge), and making absolutely sure I did it correctly. When I closed the case panel and hooked it back up, it worked! I installed the drivers and it worked. It felt great.

Suddenly, Battlefield 2 was playable! I used that computer for a few more years, learning a bit more about processors and components, but not in a targeted way, just by osmosis through my gaming and web surfing. In 2008, my friend built his own computer, and used this cool clear acrylic custom case he basically built and drilled himself from a kit. I was too intimidated from watching him struggle with getting it together, his first build, and I decided against building my own computer. I bought some $850 "gaming machine" from Cyberpower. It was a C2Q Q6600 with a crappy motherboard, a crappy PSU, 2 gigs of DDR2 in 2x1 sticks, filling both RAM slots of the motherboard, and a GT8600 GPU. And the case was a tin toilet. No management options, and the whole inside was a rat's nest - I found that out years later when I wanted to upgrade and put in a new GPU.

When the 8600 was no longer cutting it, I decided to pick up a cheap GPU that would just barely get me back into gaming again. I grabbed a 5570 and opened up the case at home - and was again intimidated because of the clutter and wires. I sucked it up and installed the GPU, then played games for about a year. Then I started having problems with some games I really wanted to play, again. I was really irritated, had buyer's remorse over getting what I found out then was a really anemic GPU, and thought, "I'll just overclock my CPU to give me some more juice, maybe that will help". That's when I learned about how shitty my motherboard was, and how important a motherboard is for overclocking and expansion. I decided that the computer wasn't worth working with anymore, so I went to Fry's and cut loose. I had learned more about the components, and had spent a bit over a month on this wonderful subreddit researching parts and builds and what people recommended.

April 2012, I came home with an 8150, a new MSI G45 motherboard, 8 gigs of DDR3-1333 RAM, a new 550W "CoolMax" PSU, and a Radeon HD 7750. It was like Christmas building the thing, with my Macbook Pro next to me for reference, motherboard poster-manual spread out on the other side. I stuffed it all into the tin toilet Cyberpower case, and after booting and installing Windows 7, it worked! I was on cloud nine... for a few days. Then I realized that the 8150 was a pretty lackluster CPU, for the money, this generation, and after looking into overclocking, found out the G45 had a lot of problems supplying power at anything above stock for an 8150 because of its 4+1 power phase configuration. "What the fuck is a 4+1 configuration!?" I thought, frustrated. So I dug in, hard, into each component. I researched what motherboards have the ability to overclock better. I found out what GPUs really give you the best bang for the buck - but more importantly, what exactly they let you do, resolution and graphics settings-wise. I figured out what is considered important in a PSU. I found a slew of reputable brands. And I saved. And I waited.

Over the summer, I decided to overclock the 8150, as I'd heard good things about its overclockability. Motherboard and shitty PSU be damned. I got it up from 3.6 to 4.1 locked frequency. It was stable, so I left it there. I bought a second 7750, trying to get some more performance out of my anemic single GPU (good money thrown after bad), cranked the 7750s up to as high as they would go before artifacting in games. I gamed all summer, and in September it finally blew. The motherboard fried and took the CPU with it. I don't know if it was the crummy CoolMax PSU or the motherboard's lack of control over supplying the voltage, but it fried. I smelled burning for about 10 seconds, thought my house was on fire, then as I started to figure out the source was below me from the computer case, it was too late. It shut off instantly with a "snap" noise. Goodnight, sweet prince.

I had been waiting to upgrade, and although I was supremely angry with my lack of research that led to the components dying, I was more than prepared. I knew every fucking component inside and out. I knew every brand, which OEMs were behind everything, what was worth the money, what was necessary, what to absolutely not cut corners on, everything. I had spent 6 months, every day, on /r/buildapc, discussing components, viewing builds, reading comments and critiques. I went to Fry's with confidence, and though I had been burned a bit by the 8150's performance, the Piledriver generation had launched that week, serendipitously. I had been reading the early reviews, and it seemed to be a HUGE hit for the price. I got a great deal on an 8320, which I knew to be the same chip at a lower stock clock, got a better motherboard, got an Antec HCG 620W PSU, which I knew to be a Seasonic OEM and of great quality for the price, a Hyper 212+, and a Phantom 410 case. I also bought a new HDD. I came home and built the crap out of that computer. I cable managed everything into oblivion. I put in an extra fan in the front. I was very happy with every component choice.

After that, and after even more research, I decided to start building and selling custom gaming rigs. I knew it was a tough sell, and that a lot of people did it, but I used my business marketing degree to create a website and build some custom rigs. I sold them for $575 and $600 brand new, and they had the high-clocked Pentium dual cores in them with a 6950, which I found for a steal at around $150 on a clearance in the fall. They could play BF3, Tribes: Ascend, Source Engine games, and anything below it, like League of Legends and WoW and Diablo 3. They were an impressive amount of power, considering I had to buy Windows for them, at the time. But the important thing was I was doing something I loved and knew everything about. After a month of building, I had an opportunity to work for an IT company, doing break/fix work. I took it. I was able to land the job, in a field I had never worked, because of /r/buildapc. I knew hardware better than anyone in that company, even if I had to learn software troubleshooting as I went. Whatever, I'm a Google master.

I still had the 7750s, though. That little reminder of my first build, and all of the bad decisions that I learned from, irritated me daily. So I saved. And I asked for Amazon bucks for Christmas from every family member that still gives gifts. I'm 28, so I didn't expect much. But everyone game me Amazon bucks, and it totaled a bit over $200. I had my eye on a GTX660 this time around, wanting to get more than the crummy entry-level 128-bit bus, and get some power for new games like BF3. But I had some money, and the day after Christmas, the first day after getting the gift money, I saw a GTX 670 going for $280 on Amazon, in a ridiculous sale. I couldn't believe my eyes. This was a top-tier GPU, in my reach! I could taste it. I dropped the extra money on it in a heartbeat, got it in 3 days, and popped it in. My dream machine was under my feet. I had an overclocked processor capable of VM work, transcoding, gaming, and a GPU that, when overclocked, matched a stock flagship 680 GPU.

So I went from a gamer to a seller of custom rigs, and a worker in the IT industry, solely because of this subreddit. My most recent addition to my rig was a Soundblaster Recon3d Professional, because I wanted a headphone amp/sound card, and it is a killer deal right now. I love the Scout mode in FPS games, and the sound quality going from unpowered headphones to powered, surround-sound, full quality is night and day. I love PC building and PC hardware, and I build computers because of /r/buildapc.

Here's the dxdiag

64 bit Windows 7.

MSI 670 OC

i7 3820

MSI ATX motherboard X79A-GD45(8D)

16gbs of patriot viper ram

Recon soundblaster 3d soundcard

antec 650 watt psu

two velociraptor hdds in raid

I was using the latest nvidia drivers. 3.20. I'm currently using the 3.26 beta drivers.

Sound Blaster Recon3D azn

I have one of these (Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D THX PCIE Fatal1ty Pro) because my current motherboard has some sound disfunction thing. If you're really interested in it, I'll sell it and buy myself a working mobo.