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Sound blaster live platium vs. mp3/x-gamer?

M

mwa009

Member
I'm considering buying a new sound card. I wonder what's the difference between sound blaster live platium and x-gamer/mp3? Platium is twice as expensive as the x-gamer card. How good is platium? Is it worth the price?
 
It comes with this neat thingy, I forget what it's called.. something like "soundrive". But it hooks into one of your 5.25" drive bays and has volume controls, headphone jacks, etc.. that's basically the only difference between the Platinum and others, I think. But the MP3/Xgamer ones are a waste of money. The best choices are either the Value or Platinum if you have the cash. Don't flame me if I'm wrong tho 🙂
 
mp3 has mp3 softwares bundles
x-gamers has game demos softwares bundles
platnium has them all AND the Live Drive for front bay audio access (plug your headphone, microphone where your CD drive is)
 
Thanks for the reply. I understand they come with different software bundles. However, I care about the hardware difference the most. Like the sound quality, etc.?
Any more comments on the hardware difference between platium, x-gamer and mp3?
 
Platinum = X Gamer = MP3

They are all the same, just come w/ diff software and like stated, the Plat. comes with the drive

BTW, the XGamer includes full version games, not demos
 
oops, they are not demos... Theif, NFS, and one more...

sound quality wise, All 3 and even the Value have the same darn sound quality
 
... and descent

actually depending on which value card you may get, you might not have digital output at all which might matter. Even if you DO get the one with the digital minijack, that thing is useless unless you have the cambridge DTT2500 speaker set which is the ONLY speaker system that utilizes it. The Platinum would be especially ideal if you're using a separate home theater system or anything that requires digital output. I also find it extremely convienent with the front panel... I would pay up the extra bux for it anyday!
 
From what I've read there seams to be a sound quality difference, with the Platinum being the best, I can't verify this personally. There is a link on Anandtech's homepage to a recent review of the Patinum but I don't know what it is.

I am building a new system and will be using the Platinum. Yes, all the software included (games especially) are the full retail versions. I saw this drive at Best Buy today for $149 and ity seems to be their new price and not a promo, but I could be wrong.
 
"Platinum = X Gamer = MP3

They are all the same, just come w/ diff software and like stated, the Plat. comes with the drive"

Bzzzzzt! Wrong.

Platinum has an advanced Wavetable over the other cards... but if you're not into Midi, then don't bother with it. Platinum is definetly geared towards Midi, hence the extra box with all the periferal hookups (microphone, midi in and out...etc...) plus the advanced wavetable.

As far as sound Quality, they are all the same card.
 
Considering I dont have the plat, I might be wrong but I just went over 2 different spec sheets on sblive.com and creativelabs.com and I cannot find any difference between them in those spec sheets except for the live drive.
 
The 5.1 series really doesn't seem like much of an improvement😛 same ol chip with new output i guess. Get a santa cruz.
 
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