Gaming sound cards: Is Creative X-Fi the only option?

[Kaspian]

Is Creative X-Fi the only option or is there a worthy contender?

 

[octopus41092]

Theres the Razer Barracuda AC-1, http://www.buy.com/prod/razer-...loc/101/207534819.html hella good deal going on at buy.com right now too.

 

[Tago]

X-Fi is the only option if you want EAX 5.0, which is only used in a small number of games.

Quality wise, E-MU and M-Audio are very highly rated competitors. They have better quality sound for music but most of their cards do not have EAX.

Creative has cornered the gaming market through EAX.

 

[Kaspian]

Originally posted by: octopus41092
Theres the Razer Barracuda AC-1, http://www.buy.com/prod/razer-...loc/101/207534819.html hella good deal going on at buy.com right now too.

Holly Lord! Thats a good deal. Whats the catch? I've never bought anything from Buy.com. Actually, I've never been to their site.

 

[zerogear]

Originally posted by: Tago
X-Fi is the only option if you want EAX 5.0, which is only used in a small number of games.

Quality wise, E-MU and M-Audio are very highly rated competitors. They have better quality sound for music but most of their cards do not have EAX.

Creative has cornered the gaming market through EAX.

E-MU is Creative. They make cards for a different segment, usually amateur music creation to professional. X-Fi is usually for gaming, unless you go Elite Pro.

 

[Kaspian]

Now, the barracuda comes with optical in/outs. How do you connect regular speaker/headphone(set)/mic to it?

 

[Tago]

E-MU is Creative. They make cards for a different segment, usually amateur music creation to professional. X-Fi is usually for gaming, unless you go Elite Pro.

Hmm, I did not know that. Well I guess the only real competitor is M-Audio, then.

Originally posted by: Kaspian
Now, the barracuda comes with optical in/outs. How do you connect regular speaker/headphone(set)/mic to it?

Buy an adapter, or higher-end speakers and headphone amps will have optical in. Most likely you will want to just use the 3.5mm jack.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Kaspian

Originally posted by: octopus41092
Theres the Razer Barracuda AC-1, http://www.buy.com/prod/razer-...loc/101/207534819.html hella good deal going on at buy.com right now too.

Holly Lord! Thats a good deal. Whats the catch? I've never bought anything from Buy.com. Actually, I've never been to their site.

The catch is that it's not very good. the DACs and ADCs are decent, but its processor is a C-Media CMI8788, which is basically a slighter better than on-board audio processor. You're looking at support for high bit depth and sampling frequencies, but all the real meat of the product (DD and DTS encoding and 3D audio/EAX) is handled in software.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: Kaspian
Now, the barracuda comes with optical in/outs. How do you connect regular speaker/headphone(set)/mic to it?

that card comes with an adapter for its HD-DAI port