Any PCI Express Audigy info update?

[imported_boe]

It seems like 3 or 4 years ago I was speaking with Creative Labs at Comdex or CES and I was hearing the praises of PCI Express - how their cards would be so much better when they went to the new slots. Something about better isolation or interference due to a superior slot.

I have not heard a word since then about a new pci express sound card. I'm thinking of building a new system in a month or two and would love to get a really nice sound card for gaming. I haven't tried the XFI yet but it seems a shame to spend that much on a card if it uses the old slot technology.

Any word on an express version?

 

[imported_boe]

I sent an e-mail to creative - so far no response. Hopefully a few other people will write them from their web page so they at least know the interest is there.

 

[us3rnotfound]

creative has no reason to research and engineer a new card for pci express since they dont have any real competition. they just keep making profits with old PCI.

 

[shortylickens]

I know the processing power of the Audigy doesnt warrant the bandwidth provided by PCIe.
And I guess the X-Fi was able to work just fine on PCI too.

And ol' boy is right. Without competition Creative has no reason to push the envelope out.
For myself, when my Audigy 1 is not cutting it anymore, I will go out of my way to purchase anything but Creative. They were awesome back in the Pro, 16 and AWE 32 days, but not anymore.

 

[Peter]

If you read up on the "crackling" issues the X-Fi is currently plagued with, and which Creative appear unable to fix, you'll see that their sound cards could use a bandwidth upgrade quite well actually.

 

[you2]

My understanding is that the issue isn't due to lack of bw on the pci bus but rather how the chipset allocates priority to the bus. Not sure what the spec sez (or if it sez anything with regards to devices on both pci/pcie).

 

[Patrick Wolf]

Haven't had any serious problems with Creative yet, they're still a winner in my book. Although a PCIe card would be nice.

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: you2
My understanding is that the issue isn't due to lack of bw on the pci bus but rather how the chipset allocates priority to the bus. Not sure what the spec sez (or if it sez anything with regards to devices on both pci/pcie).

... which is exactly why PCI isn't the right bus for a high bandwidth isochronous device with small buffer sizes.

Let's face it, the PCI bus on desktop boards is on the farthest end of the decoding and arbitration chain, the slowest relevant bus in the system. High amounts of traffic anywhere else (CPU-SB, CPU-RAM, CPU-NB-PCIE, whatever) will affect PCI latencies and throughput.

PCIE does have a concept for "priority traffic", and devices and slots don't share bandwidth.

TV cards currently provide a fine example of what can be done on PCIE 1x that couldn't be done on PCI - all of a sudden we have simultaneous 4-channel operation, whereas on PCI, 2-channel was marginal.

 

[imported_boe]

I got this response from Creative. We'll just dodge the question.

Although it is not PCI-Express and a release date for a soundcard with PC-Express is not know, here is the best gaming sound card in the world. It retails at $279.99 although I can offer an $80 Rebate. Its called the X-fi Fatality, it has 64 MB of X-RAM built into the card to completely eliminate lag from audio in gaming. The sound quality is acute enough to locate enemies solely from the audio. Here is a link, please call me for further question or to order at 1-800-998-1000 ext 8173 M-F 9am-1pm CST