Asus Xonar DX vs Creative Sound Blaster X-FI Xtreme

[angro]

They are at the same price range....which one should I buy ?

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

With some games, the Xtreme would cause a BSOD no matter what drivers were used. From what I gathered, over suffering 3-4 yrs of it, was a bad batch of cards rolling off the assembly line. Besides, I think I read the Xonar has lower DPC latency.

 

[angro]

Thank you BTRY B 529th FA BN xonar dx it is then

 

[BrightCandle]

I've had both and I think honestly it doesn't matter much. I prefer the surround effect of the Xonar and Dolby headphone over CMSS, I think it gives me better positional clues than Creatives implementation. But its pretty marginal.

I have had no problems with drivers for either, both have had a reputation for poor drivers in the past but so far I haven't had problems.

 

[JasonCoder]

I own a Xonar DX and am very happy with it. It's not perfect. For some reason no one seems to be able to nail the sound market.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

it's just my experience.. take it like a grain of salt

Here is that article i was talking about

 

[supremor]

I used an original X-Fi XtremeMusic PCI card for 5 years with official Creative drivers and had almost no issue with it at all. I have been using an X-Fi Titanium PCIe card for over a year now with custom drivers also without issue and I play many different games.

Just wanted to give an actually positive opinion regarding Creative since its not all bad but obviously YMMV. In any case the Xonar cards are quite good and I'd wager you would be happy with either one coming from onboard sound provided you have the speakers/headphones to notice the difference.

 

[bononos]

it's just my experience.. take it like a grain of salt

Here is that article i was talking about

The article you linked only discusses the Xonar and does not mention anything about the Xtreme.

Creative cards have usually had an edge in their surround sound implementation (positional audio) for games during the EAX days. Where they fail is they're generally more problematic and bloatware. Creative cards have the latency issues since their pci sb, the sbs would hog and make poor use of the pci bus and cause crackles/pops. Being a defacto monopoly they studiously ignored complaints and have never fixed the issue. Their pci-E cards may not have the issue because the signalling protocols are different.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

The article you linked only discusses the Xonar and does not mention anything about the Xtreme.

Creative cards have usually had an edge in their surround sound implementation (positional audio) for games during the EAX days. Where they fail is they're generally more problematic and bloatware. Creative cards have the latency issues since their pci sb, the sbs would hog and make poor use of the pci bus and cause crackles/pops. Being a defacto monopoly they studiously ignored complaints and have never fixed the issue. Their pci-E cards may not have the issue because the signalling protocols are different.

Insightful, and good to know, thanks :thumbsup: