Creative has jumped into the 21st century with their latest line of soundcards under the aptly titled Audigy Series. This latest round of cards is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition for its price range. The mass appeal here is to gamers, and high-end audiophiles. Creative boasts that its newly developed Audigy chipset is breakthrough technology. We'll take a look at all the aspects of this line to see what group it’s most beneficial too.

First off, everyone wants to know price. Well you have the range from $99 for the x-gamer or mp3+ to the Platinum $228 all the way up to the Platinum EX $295. The difference between the cards is that the Platinum versions come with the internal Audigy drive. The card features a nice bonus: a firewire port for fast song uploads and DV editing. That means there is no room for a midi/joystick port. Luckily Creative has given you an add-on card for easy hook up.

If you shelled out the extra cash for the Platinum, then setting up the Drive is very simple. You only need to hook the necessary cables up from the soundcard into the back of the drive. It fits into a standard 5 1/4" drive. It is powered by a floppy connection and luckily comes with a splitter.

The card itself installs as easily as any other PCI card. Slap it in and switch the computer on. When Windows boots, it will prompt you to install the drivers. Creative suggests that you quit this and use the CD auto launch for install. XP users might have trouble off the bat using the firewire or some of the EAX abilities, but Creative already has a new patch out that remedies most of these problems. Creative also says that at present it does not support Win 2K for gaming until further updates are released. I recommend updating here, and you should have no problems.

If you are on a simple desktop or stereo set up, simply plug into the (1) spot in the back and you are all ready to go. Hooking up your 5.1 speakers can be a chore. You must be careful when plugging anything into the Audigy while the computer is on. Often times the wrong connection can lead to an error or causes windows to "bug" out. All you need to do is simply result to the manual and all is well.

It was a mild set up. A little buggy at times but quite easier than one would expect.