Soundcards
 

Can someone recondment a sound card with a optical output?

Im sick of just going out the back with a standard jack.

Um, most of the sound blaster cards have optical outputs, have a look on www.soundblaster.com .
Hope this helps mate :)

Legacy are ment to be good, though i don't know weather they provide optical output.

You would need something along the lines of the Audigy Platinum, though I would look also at the Extigy, mainly cause with an external USB sound system you can also plug it into a laptop or any other machine to upgrade its audio...
My suggestion is always go with the creative labs cards (Audigy, Extigy, Sound Blaster etc) Everything else aims for soundblaster standards, what could be more compatible than the genuine item?



WNA - unless I am mistaken Legacy means old 16bit cards, which do not have an optical output.

No they don't, get your facts right, most digital outs from soundblasters are s/pdif and not optical, an optical cable will not light up if you plug it into one (and obviously won't transmit anything) if you want an optical out on a creative card you'll need to look for a soundblaster mp3+ or something like an Audigy Platinum/Plat EX (but why would you bother, if you want to spend £150 on a sound card at least choose a decent manufacturer instead of wasting money on creative gamers crap). I'd personally go for a Terratech, Hoontech or M-Audio card (if you can afford it). Having said all that, a good quality RCA cable will serve you just as well from a card with an RCA digital out which opens up a whole range of cheaper cards.

Very true, but if you look at the board, you will see a pin outs for an optical daughter card which you can buy from them ;)
And when i said most soundblaster, i meant anything from a Live upwards :)
However, if you have some money to burn go for a Terratech DMX (some correct me if im wrong), it scored very high on the reviews, especially against a soundblast Live card and it was on the edge of studio cards. But cards like M-Audio,Digidesign would be overkill, since there targetted towards the bedroom music producers.

Hope this helps :)
Dom

I have a Legacy in my AMD Athalon XP 2100+ still pretty good :D

Ahh.. under device manager it says "Legacy Audio Device"?