Razer’s excellent piece of gaming audio gear kicks some major sound butt.

There was a time where I was all about the extra soundcard – none of that built-in stuff for me. Then I started fooling around with external soundcards for hard disk recording, found myself carrying around 15 pounds of metal boxes and said enough! For four years, if the motherboard had a soundcard onboard, I was happy.

Then I started testing hardware for GWN and acquired the otherwise excellent ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe/Wireless Edition motherboard with its sub-par Analog Devices soundcard – and the crackling that came with it – and I knew it was time for a change. Fortunately, a solution was at hand: the reps at gaming hardware company Razer were happy to send me their entry into the soundcard market, the Barracuda AC-1. Sporting 7.1 surround support and a variety of surround emulation options through Razer’s 3D 720 Audio Engine, plus support for EAX 2.0 and a connection for Razer’s Barracuda HP-1 gaming headphones, the Barracuda AC-1 soundcard is definitely an item of interest for any hardcore gamer. But is it worth the cost? I put the card through the tests to get the real story.

Installation / Configuration

Installing the AC-1 is an easy three-part process: first, find a free PCI slot on your motherboard and slot in the card, then hook your speakers into the analog or S/PDIF ports on the back and finally, install the card drivers and the Professional Gaming Audio Control Panel, a sprawling, multi-part green and black behemoth whose complexity screams for you to read the instruction manual.