Creative X-Fi Review (By Me)

[Polish3d]

Curiousity got the best of me and today I went to Best Buy and picked up a Creative X-Fi Extreme Music version.

There is a 14 day return/exchange so I figured I'd wait the two weeks for newegg and other carriers to have it and decide about returning it or not if I decide to go for the Platnium or Fatal1ty card.

Tested on system below. Former card was Audigy 2 ZS.


The Good:

Sounds do sound better. BF2 sounds considerably crisper, overall a more immersing experience. Music also sounds better. Processor usage may be reduced but I can't say.
Half Life 2 and other games also sound noticeably better, perhaps largely because of the 24 bit crystallizer which does seem to work in terms of making sounds sound 'sharper.'


Software is pretty good. A couple simple aps that actually open fast and work well. No complaints there.


Pretty. Minor thing but the bling solid gold slot on the back of your case has gotten me laid 5 times already today.


The bad:

Price. Seriously wtf.

Drivers are buggy (surprise). In BF2, I continually get that sound (don't know the term for it) when you say, install or uninstall your sound card and you get that little 'blip' or 'click' type sound. It happens often throughout the game, I think its a bug in the Open AL software as when I tried installing it on my Audigy 2 the same thing happened.



The Ugly:

[edit]
Corrected. You CAN use external decoders. Requires a little tweaking of the options and re-entering the "Speaker Connection Wizard" that you see at setup but it does work.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

I guess you could stick your A2 back in and run dual soundcards? I don't know if two SB cards has been done before though as most people that run dual cards seem to have one for music and one for gaming. (SB cards not being their music choice)

 

[Polish3d]

Well I did see that Unreal 2004 gets a sizeable boost from X-Ram, I guess (assuming I'm not wrong about the SPDIF thing) I could get the Fatal1ty card if I have to. Which I would probably rather not yet. It would be a gamble as to whether or not future games would support it, though it seems a fairly promising technology if you read that x-bit article.

Ie, better sound and faster FPS because of X-Ram

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Frackal
Well I did see that Unreal 2004 gets a sizeable boost from X-Ram, I guess (assuming I'm not wrong about the SPDIF thing) I could get the Fatal1ty card if I have to. Which I would probably rather not yet. It would be a gamble as to whether or not future games would support it, though it seems a fairly promising technology if you read that x-bit article.

Ie, better sound and faster FPS because of X-Ram

You shouldn't be seeing a difference; UT2004 does not support XRAM(except for a custom CL version).

 

[Pariah]

The Ugly:....

Wow, that's pretty interesting and the first place I've seen it mentioned. Unfortunately for you, it appears you are right. There is no digital out listed on Creative's spec page. Oddly, there is a digital-in. Looks like Creative isn't playing games when they say music edition. If you were planning on using the digital out for music, onboard SPDIF would likely suffice, and you wouldn't need an X-fi.

If the Z-680's have multichannel analog-in, from a quality standpoint, you're much better off using that with the X-fi than digital out anyway. Assuming you're already using the analog for gaming, there's no reason for you to be using digital.

Also, DVD-Audio is analog only, so I assume you mean audio from a DVD-Video.

Though I can see Creative's reasoning for not having a digital out on that card, it's still pretty odd and a definite negative that prospective customers should be made aware of.

You shouldn't be seeing a difference; UT2004 does not support XRAM(except for a custom CL version).

I think we can assume he meant seeing the difference in the benchmarks posted on the web. The card he has doesn't have X-RAM, so obviously he wouldn't see a difference even if there was one to be had.

 

[wfbberzerker]

Originally posted by: Frackal
Well I did see that Unreal 2004 gets a sizeable boost from X-Ram, I guess (assuming I'm not wrong about the SPDIF thing) I could get the Fatal1ty card if I have to. Which I would probably rather not yet. It would be a gamble as to whether or not future games would support it, though it seems a fairly promising technology if you read that x-bit article.

Ie, better sound and faster FPS because of X-Ram

are you referring to the graph based off of the test done by creative (its on tom's hardware's review of the x-fi)? if so, i'd take it with a grain of salt.

 

[raj14]

like most of Creatives' products it will be too expensive for Gamers, this card would have hit the sweet spot if it was priced 200$ you can get a 6800Ultra is 400Bucks, overpriced, One is better off getting a Audigy 2 ZS.

 

[Polish3d]

Originally posted by: Pariah

The Ugly:....

Wow, that's pretty interesting and the first place I've seen it mentioned. Unfortunately for you, it appears you are right. There is no digital out listed on Creative's spec page. Oddly, there is a digital-in. Looks like Creative isn't playing games when they say music edition. If you were planning on using the digital out for music, onboard SPDIF would likely suffice, and you wouldn't need an X-fi.

If the Z-680's have multichannel analog-in, from a quality standpoint, you're much better off using that with the X-fi than digital out anyway. Assuming you're already using the analog for gaming, there's no reason for you to be using digital.

Also, DVD-Audio is analog only, so I assume you mean audio from a DVD-Video.

Though I can see Creative's reasoning for not having a digital out on that card, it's still pretty odd and a definite negative that prospective customers should be made aware of.

You shouldn't be seeing a difference; UT2004 does not support XRAM(except for a custom CL version).

I think we can assume he meant seeing the difference in the benchmarks posted on the web. The card he has doesn't have X-RAM, so obviously he wouldn't see a difference even if there was one to be had.

Ya, looks like I'm stuck buying the fvcking fatal1ty card, hopefully for a better price than best buy's. There is absolutely no reason for them not to include SPDIF, hell it was on my crappy SB Live Value if I remember correctly, seems to be just another way to force users to buy more expensive equipment. Not for extra features, but for ones unnecessarily omitted.

I do want to use my external decoder on the Z-680s, the sound is superb with Digital Coax

 

[Polish3d]

Originally posted by: Pariah

The Ugly:....

Wow, that's pretty interesting and the first place I've seen it mentioned. Unfortunately for you, it appears you are right. There is no digital out listed on Creative's spec page. Oddly, there is a digital-in. Looks like Creative isn't playing games when they say music edition. If you were planning on using the digital out for music, onboard SPDIF would likely suffice, and you wouldn't need an X-fi.

If the Z-680's have multichannel analog-in, from a quality standpoint, you're much better off using that with the X-fi than digital out anyway. Assuming you're already using the analog for gaming, there's no reason for you to be using digital.

Also, DVD-Audio is analog only, so I assume you mean audio from a DVD-Video.

.

Hmm, so how does one connect the XFi platnium/Fatal1ty editions to allow audio from a dvd video?

 

[LED]

I'm interested in knowing which Speakers you are using with it and when I upped to the DC AMD square I notice one major improvement over my onboard sound so I took out my Audigy for now

 

[bozack]

Sorry but as I posted in another thread the Fatal1ty boards price is just too prohibitive, they are seriously off their rocker in my opinion if they truly think that enough people will be willing to pay near $300 for a sound card, at least with graphics people have notable gains in both appearance and playability....with sound it is either ok or it blows and I would be willing to bet most will deal with slightly less sound quality than pay out the wazoo for the high priced Creative options, I know I won't.

It is a shame they aren't offering a $150 gamers version of the card as IMHO that would have been high enough to pull a profit and low enough to entice gamers over the older Audigy 2 hardware even at rebate...but alas the only thing on the Roadmap in that price range in the here and now is the "Music" which so far seems to leave little to be desired.

 

[Oyeve]

No digital out on the cheapest version. That so sux. I am sticking with my A2ZS. My pc is connected to my 7.1 receiver via digital out so the X-fi is out for me. I will not spend 200+ just to get digital out when a sub $100 card has it.

 

[Polish3d]

Originally posted by: Oyeve
No digital out on the cheapest version. That so sux. I am sticking with my A2ZS. My pc is connected to my 7.1 receiver via digital out so the X-fi is out for me. I will not spend 200+ just to get digital out when a sub $100 card has it.

I know... I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet... they are fvcking pricks for trying to force such a ridiculously expensive upgrade

 

[Farmer]

Hmmm. Not willing to upgrade if the difference is hardly noticeable. I am no audiophile, but my integrated audio sounds fine to me.

Pretty. Minor thing but the bling solid gold slot on the back of your case has gotten me laid 5 times already today.

Heh, if it's solid gold, maybe that's why it costs so much .

So you show all the girls the back of your computer case?

 

[Lazaredz]

Is there a firewire plug on the board? I know some of the Aud 2s had it.

 

[Polish3d]

Nope

 

[amheck]

Originally posted by: Lazaredz
Is there a firewire plug on the board? I know some of the Aud 2s had it.

That's gonna be the deal breaker for me, too, then. I have the Asus A8N-E board which does not have 1394, so the audigy2zs with firewire on the card looks like it will be the one for me. Thankfully, too, cause they are stupid cheap nowadays.

 

[Auric]

The Flexi-Jack handles digital I/O. A ROM drive's S/PDIF output is only for CD audio where the preferred direct connection to a PC audio system is available rather than via the PCI bus. The latter method is the standard for DVD and the cable is not used.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

So what exactly is X-RAM? The new EAX?

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
So what exactly is X-RAM? The new EAX?

On-board RAM for caching things, not unlike VRAM on video cards.