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Motherboard or X-Fi Soundcard

PeteRoy

PeteRoy

Senior member
The Creative X-Fi soundcards costs a lot like motherboards, do you think they really cost more to manufacture than a motherboard?
 
Originally posted by: PeteRoy
do you think they really cost more to manufacture than a motherboard?
Click to expand...
No. The bill of materials is obviously going to be far less for the X-Fi card.

Creative has no real competitor in the gaming sound card market - it's their own standard that's widely accepted as the defacto standard, therefore they can charge a premium for it. Everyone else either has to license their technology (Auzentech), or have some sort of a hack that emulates it (ASUS).

Motherboards - you have plenty of competitors both in terms of chipsets (Intel, AMD, Nvidia, VIA, SiS, etc), and also in terms of manufacturers (ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, etc).
 
Cost is less, but volume is also less. If a motherboard manufacturer only makes $5/board but sells 200,000/quarter, they've made $4m. If Creative makes $50/board but sells only 500/quarter, they've only made $100k.
 
Wait, so onboard sound cards like realtek/azaliahd or whatever don't pose a significant threat? Just curious..
 
Originally posted by: plion
Wait, so onboard sound cards like realtek/azaliahd or whatever don't pose a significant threat? Just curious..
Click to expand...

Well unless they come up with something to emulate EAX and be able to play/record audiophile like sound. Not really.
 
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