AUDIGY Zenith?

[Googer]

Does anyone know when the Sound Blaster Audigy Zenith for PCI-express will be released?

 

[imported_itr]

nope, but how can they improve anymore when our ears are so limited?

 

[Pariah]

They're waiting for the release of Duke Nukem Forever so a piece of vaporware can can be bundled with another piece of vaporware.

Creative has never hinted at such a product. All the rumours have come from one "source" that VR-Zone claims to have that gave no details and has not be substantiated by any other source. It doesn't take a John Carmack technical wizard to assume Creative is a going to eventually release a PCI-E soundcard and then just randomly start a rumour so when it eventually happens you can claim, I told you so.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: Pariah
They're waiting for the release of Duke Nukem Forever so a piece of vaporware can can be bundled with another piece of vaporware.

Creative has never hinted at such a product. All the rumours have come from one "source" that VR-Zone claims to have that gave no details and has not be substantiated by any other source. It doesn't take a John Carmack technical wizard to assume Creative is a going to eventually release a PCI-E soundcard and then just randomly start a rumour so when it eventually happens you can claim, I told you so.

I just read an article at NT compatable that Creative just had some kind of launch party in singapore. But I don't know of any details

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: itr
nope, but how can they improve anymore when our ears are so limited?

As long as I can tell the differance between Live music and the Canned Stuff then there is still plenty of room for improvement. It all sounds artificial to my ears.

 

[Pariah]

Link?

Here's a thread I just found over at 3DSS that's less than a week old. According to them, they have heard nothing at all about it, including the Zenith name that is floating around.

Edit, nevermind, the post was from the editor of another site, not 3DSS. Nevertheless, none of the rumors have been verified since they originally leaked last November.

 

[Bonesdad]

Originally posted by: Pariah
Link?

Here's a thread I just found over at 3DSS that's less than a week old. According to them, they have heard nothing at all about it, including the Zenith name that is floating around.

Edit, nevermind, the post was from the editor of another site, not 3DSS. Nevertheless, none of the rumors have been verified since they originally leaked last November.

So the question then becomes: Is anyone making PCIe audio cards? Is anyone making PCIe anything, besides video cards?

 

[ViRGE]

Bonesdad, I've seen plans and chips for PCIe network cards and PCIe storage(SATA/SCSI) cards.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: Bonesdad

Originally posted by: Pariah
Link?

Here's a thread I just found over at 3DSS that's less than a week old. According to them, they have heard nothing at all about it, including the Zenith name that is floating around.

Edit, nevermind, the post was from the editor of another site, not 3DSS. Nevertheless, none of the rumors have been verified since they originally leaked last November.

So the question then becomes: Is anyone making PCIe audio cards? Is anyone making PCIe anything, besides video cards?

Yes, there are several Gigabit NIC's out there and LSI makes an x4 SCSI controller
http://www.buy.com/retail/product_jump.asp?sku=10364628


http://www.lsilogic.com/products/megaraid/megaraid_320_2e.html

 

[Googer]

Some Reasources on Audigy Zenith
http://www.anandtech.com/news/shownews.aspx?i=23370&ATVAR_START=21&p=2

 

[Pariah]

I said above that every Zenith related rumor posted has come from that one paragraph blurb over at VR-Zone. Then you say there is an article on NT Compatible about a Creative launch party, and I ask you to post a link because I don't see it. So you post a link to Anandtech that links to... yup, that same VR-Zone paragraph that no one else seems to have any knowledge about. Nice job chief...

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: Pariah
I said above that every Zenith related rumor posted has come from that one paragraph blurb over at VR-Zone. Then you say there is an article on NT Compatible about a Creative launch party, and I ask you to post a link because I don't see it. So you post a link to Anandtech that links to... yup, that same VR-Zone paragraph that no one else seems to have any knowledge about. Nice job chief...

My Mistake! I am dyslexic and misread the title of the NT Compatable Article , however it did show up when part of my search phrase in google contained audigy zenith

And did not read your previous post correctly Sorry for that! Here is the mistaken article I read.

http://www.ntcompatible.com/story13551.html

Prehaps it's just a rumor after all. But I will find out the truth even if it means going to Singapore and knocking on Creative's front door.

 

[CKTurbo128]

Originally posted by: itr
nope, but how can they improve anymore when our ears are so limited?

Err, maybe you should try listening to other sound cards like the M-Audio Revolution or the E-MU 0404/1212m with high-quality headphones. For just music listening, they sound quite a bit better than the Audigy series, due to higher quality DACs and no resampling.

I just hope Zenith is a totally new sound card architecture, one that does not resample music like the Audigy series. However, given Creative's lack of innovation in the past several years, I fear that it might be another Audigy chipset with a PCI-E connector.

 

[Bonesdad]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
Bonesdad, I've seen plans and chips for PCIe network cards and PCIe storage(SATA/SCSI) cards.

That's all? I can't believe there are no sound cards in the works...no TV tuners....

Seems like PCIe has been around long enough. If video cards can take advantage of it so soon, why not other components.

 

[Pariah]

Lack of market is keeping more PCI-E devices from being produced. More than 99.9% of the market is still using regular PCI, so until PCI-E becomes more ubiquitous we are not going to be seeing fringe products that won't benefit much from the higher bandwidth like TV tuners and so forth. Eventually everything will move over just as eventually everything moved from ISA to PCI, but it is going to take a while.

Here's hoping Creative does announce their new card in the next week, but I'm not holding my breath. The launch of the Audigy 4 Pro has all the earmarks of a last hurrah for PCI, like the AWE64 Gold was for ISA, which hopefully signals something completely new with the next release. Though I'm not sure I want to upgrade my whole system for a sound card since I don't have PCI-E now.

 

[sharkeeper]

nope, but how can they improve anymore when our ears are so limited?

As long as you believe in this, your onboard sound will do just fine.

 

[PrayForDeath]

Originally posted by: Googer

Originally posted by: itr
nope, but how can they improve anymore when our ears are so limited?

As long as I can tell the differance between Live music and the Canned Stuff then there is still plenty of room for improvement. It all sounds artificial to my ears.

:thumbsup:

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: Pariah
Lack of market is keeping more PCI-E devices from being produced. More than 99.9% of the market is still using regular PCI, so until PCI-E becomes more ubiquitous we are not going to be seeing fringe products that won't benefit much from the higher bandwidth like TV tuners and so forth. Eventually everything will move over just as eventually everything moved from ISA to PCI, but it is going to take a while.

Here's hoping Creative does announce their new card in the next week, but I'm not holding my breath. The launch of the Audigy 4 Pro has all the earmarks of a last hurrah for PCI, like the AWE64 Gold was for ISA, which hopefully signals something completely new with the next release. Though I'm not sure I want to upgrade my whole system for a sound card since I don't have PCI-E now.

The need is there, because Legacy PCI is already bottlenecked. This kind of reminds of USB when it first came out, there was nothing to plug into those little ports for 3 or 4 years and now every thing is USB. Just given Time we will see PCI-e desklights and electric shavers as well as the usual NIC's and audio cards.

I read somewhere (2 places) a while back that Creative will be offering the same card in Conventional PCI at the same time as PCI-Express. So you can upgrade and keep your old system if you like. I don't think they would be dumb enough to ignore 99.999% of the market.

 

[Googer]

I just found this, Creatives New X-Fi sound card will challange and take on Intel's azalia sound system.

Creative's "EMU10K2.5" architecture that powers current-generation Audigy 2 ZS cards is a derivative of the original EMU10K1 audio processor found on the Sound Blaster Live, which debuted seven years ago. That's a long time to go between major architectural overhauls, but Creative is the only company left doing hardware audio acceleration. Even so, the company is pressing ahead with an aggressive new architecture called X-Fi, with which the company intends to deliver "Xtreme Fidelity." The X-Fi is poised to bring huge tracts of audio processing horsepower to the PC, delivering new levels of audio effects in games, and enabling very versatile digital audio workstations. Today, we'll take you through the inner workings of this new audio powerhouse, and show you how X-Fi could well reshape the PC audio landscape.

Specs compaired to the old Audigy:
----------------------X-Fi Audigy (EMU10K2.5) Difference
Transistors: 51,100,100 4,600,100----------------11X
Logic Gates: 1,613,658 200,000------------------8X
Manufacturing Process: 0.13-micron, 1.2V core 0.18-micron, 1.8V core N/A
Clock Frequency: 400MHz 200MHz--------- 2X
Processing: 10,340 MIPS 424+ MIPS --------24x.

 

[Googer]

No wonder creative keeps reissueing the same cr*p over and over, again and again.

From Extreme Tech:

Work began on the X-Fi about three-and-a-half years ago...

 

[Chaotic42]

That sounds pretty neat, but it will always come back to the question of compatability and drivers with Creative.