both are labeled with 8830. I dont think it matters. There really is no reason to fake a sound card.

It doesn't mean anything if a chip has a "vortex" OR a "Vortex2" label?

they both have the same model number. I would find it HIGHLY unlikely that there will be any issues.

luckybob wrote:

both are labeled with 8830. I dont think it matters. There really is no reason to fake a sound card.

there was, when they were sold at a high price.
and yes, diamond sound cards are expensive to fake. but most geniune diamond cards are assembled in china, so fakers can acquire remaining components from the factory at a very low price when diamond went bankrupt, and use them to continue assembling faked cards.

noshutdown wrote:

luckybob wrote:

both are labeled with 8830. I dont think it matters. There really is no reason to fake a sound card.

there was, when they were sold at a high price.
and yes, diamond sound cards are expensive to fake. but most geniune diamond cards are assembled in china, so fakers can acquire remaining components from the factory at a very low price when diamond went bankrupt, and use them to continue assembling faked cards.

But 10 years after the cards hay-day? I highly doubt there will be any issues. I would think all the lemon cards will have been tossed out by now.

They are just the same cards..

Open up both windows.. and see.. There is no differents.. Only the angle of the light..

I know they look similar, but why isn't there a "2" on the first chip? The Vortex and Vortex 2 chips are not the same.

How is your chinese?
They are talking about the exact same issue here:
http://www.dearhoney.idv.tw/SoundCard/Vortex2 … 830_compare.htm

Yes, the Vortex and Vortex2 chips are not the same, which is why they have different part numbers. An AU8830 is a Vortex 2, regardless of whether it has the '2' printed on it.

I don't know why some AU8830 chips are marked 'Vortex 2' while others aren't... possibly they came from different manufacturing facilities or something. But I've seen both variants (more without the '2' than with it, actually), and I also own cards with both variants, and there is no functional difference between them.

Thanks for the link, Gerwin. Unfortunately I don't speak Chinese, so I fed the page to the google translator. Of all the jumbled up sentences I found these interesting:

"Only the good things themselves, others with inferior goods, after all, not a good thing; or the Aureal indeed its customers makers pointed out that there are two different AU8830, a cheap poor performance, a more expensive performance is good to see clients vendor wishes to buy, these are unknown"

I wonder if they are referring to the same thing I brought up here....

But Old Thrashbarg says there is absolutely no difference between the two.

I'll probably buy both, and when I have the time test them and let you all know the results.

It looks to me like the differences shown on that page have to do with the card design and drivers rather than the chips themselves. They seem to be speculating that there might be different types of Vortex2 chips, but it doesn't appear to be anything more than speculation. (Of course I could be misunderstanding, since I'm having to interpret the rough machine translation.)

I have two TB Montego II cards, one without the '2' and one with it, and without looking closely at the card I'd never know a difference between 'em. In fact, I didn't know any difference between 'em until I happened to be swapping parts around on two systems that had them installed... up until that point, I didn't realize I even owned two of them.

Now, I should probably qualify that to say, that doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't any difference, just that if there is one, it's not large enough to be noticeable. I've never gone so far as to take any actual measurements, though.

Vogons member Great Hierophant is writing in several places that AU8830A2 cards are a an older Revision (A) compared to the AU8830 cards (Revision B). Revision B being faster. Which seems to be sourced from the table in that chinese article.

It's certainly possible that a later revision would be better, though I wonder how many of the revision B chips actually made it out into the wild... That Chinese article is the first I've ever seen of a Vortex2 that wasn't an AU8830A2. Maybe they were only used on the SQ2500?

Thanks to all for the answers. When I get my hands on both I will let you know the results (after you tell me how to test properly sound cards 😀 )