X-Fi finally goes PCI-Express
Motherboard makers cry 'hurrah'
THOSE ITCHING FOR a little more aural pleasure than that provided by their on-board motherboard sound may be pleased to know that Creative is stepping out with a few new models in its X-Fi Fatal1ty line.
Yes, carrying the moniker of legendary super-dweeb Jonathan 'Fatal1ty' Wendell, he of the 5 minutes of Quake fame, Creative has two new boards designed with gamers in mind, both with names long enough to give Mavis Beacon finger fatigue.
The 'Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series' card is a fairly standard X-Fi card with a PCI-Express x1 connector to fit onto modern motherboards that lack standard PCI slots. It has the usual bevvy of output connectors as well as the Alchemy technology that returns EAX effects to Vista gaming.
Meanwhile, the 'Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series' is the same thing, but with a drive-bay add-in that brings audio ports and volume controls to the front of the computer.
Creative hasn't unveiled pricing for the cards yet, but expect to pay a pretty penny - anything with Wendell's mug on carries a premium.
The company has long been criticised for failing to offer a PCI-Express version of its X-Fi cards, given the fact that standard PCI is currently limping towards extinction. It has long maintained that such a transition is 'harder than it might seem', and Creative even rolled out Steve Erickson, VP of audio, to tell interested parties that "We have re-architected our X-Fi processor... you'll know why it's worth the upgrade to PCI Express the second you hear it."
Actually, we're pretty sure it was gamers begging Creative for the upgrade, not the other way around. Either way, motherboard makers will surely be delighted that they can now lop off those old PCI sockes and save themselves a few more cents a board.
Look out for these blighters to be on virtual shelves in the next few days. µ
Comments
Shorely shome mistake
"lop off those old PCI sockes and save themselves a few more cents a board"As you saying that it cheaper to buy a license for a PCIe slot than a PCI slot?
Shurely Intel charge more for a faster newer technology?
maybe you are saying that to put add one type of expansion slot it cheaper than incorporating two different slots?
omg its kryptic willy!!!
who cares?
Asus already has a great PCIe card Xonar DX, so who in theyr right mind would pay 3 times more for a creative card with the same if not less features?I hope someone from Creative reads this...
Does this mean - now we have a "new" product - that Creative will defrost its cryogenically frozen driver and software developers to release another driver update that maybe works a tiny bit better with Vista?Personally I couldn't give a stuff about anything Creative produce anymore. If there is a company out there who supports its customer's less over the long term I have no idea who they are.
My next soundcard shall be either onboard or someone other than Creative.
I Wonder
if this new slot card will cause any problems with the latest chipsets from nVidia like it did when nForce4 was out with the PCI version.I still don't know if that is fixed I was going to get 1 for my 939 rig but I have a couple of 1x PCI-E slots so depending on price. Which knowing CREATIVE for this so called new card (it's only slot change mate) it'll be £50-150 due to the Fatality name on it.
customer care
Microsoft going to release new OS.that mean how long this card will live?Creative don't want to support for new OS.
oops
Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio (PCI Express version) released October 2006...Cards are one thing
Drivers are another, and Creative is in deep doo-doo with its X-Fi drivers for Vista.As for my X-Fi card, it is working fine under XP, so I doubt that I would have any compelling reason to change.
Darius
...because some of us enjoy hardware accelerated EAX sound effects, something the Asus only software emulates.BS
How can they pretend that migrating to PCIe is difficult... Its just the same (there is backward compatibility features in PCIe standard)!Also, PCIe-PCI bridges exist (they are used on modern motherboards to provide PCI slots).
Companies like that, who can't invest any decent money in development (hardware/drivers), and just plan to sell old products will die.
Irrelevant
Sorry Creative, but you made yourselves irrelevant to the PC audio industry already. I can't trust you to make drivers or even support your products anymore.It was fun while it lasted, but you only have yourself to blame.
Hurray, PCI-X-FI Baby
Man, I've been waiting a long time for this. Who cared what it costs it a Creative Labs card! You don't need driver support, the first one works and will work forever. Who is Asus to claim that they can make a better sound card than the people who invented sound cards, anyway (not saying the Asus offering isn't good it is but hey, Creative is the brand name here) Once you purchase that you'll expect a certain about of qualityDaneil_K vs Creative Case
i haven't forgotten that case, Creative is still trying to be smart, cheating their customers' dollars.same expired candy, new wrappers, then 2x 3x the price tag.
its not gonna get me, period, i will get myself an Asus sound card, or any other company's card beside Creative's.
banned Creative for life, people need to know why and what happened, search "Daniel_K Creative Xfi".
You'd be crazy to buy one
Who'd want to put up with Creative's terrible driver support? All the news coverage about them this year has made it pretty crystal clear what their attitude towards the customer is.On board sound sounds alright to me
On board sound sounds alright to me. My A8N32-SLI deluxe on-board sound sounds pretty good, has 5.1 or 7.1 sound.What are the sales figures like for these products compared to 5-10 years ago? 10 years ago most pc's had sound cards, so there was a reason to buy a good one. But now I think most people are happy with on-board sound.
Can we have a poll on here about this?
Wow...odd replies!
The current PCIe creative card is not hardware accelerated and less than the Xtreme Audio in quality, PCIe is not easy to impliment but only easy for us to plug and play (ask nVidia about sound and the bus), When the Asus sounds better and can handle the emulation why is that a bad thing, and Intel doesn't own rights to the PCIe...it's part of the PCIesig, a consortium. And for pete's sake learn to make fully working sentences folks!That was funny, and good.
both with names long enough to give Mavis Beacon finger fatigue.That was good;-}
drivers, drivers, drivers!
Creative lost my business after complete and utter failure to deliver even basic functioning drivers over the last few years. Why on earth would I trust them now? Why on earth would I buy a new product from them when I know it will never work right? All creative cares about is ripping off the consumer and protecting their precious IP at all costs, even if it completely screws the customer.Creative, take your new cards and go pound sand. We don't need or want you.
Onboard 7.1 sound
I got a new setup and left out a sound card as I had to try the onboard 7.1 sound, and in movies it was wow!...great. I could hear all the effects from side/rear etc.I guess not having pictures of fatality on a box doesnt matter after all.
Sound Cards already in the same path as the Dodo
It amazes me that people even still bother to go out and buy Sound Cards these days.Sorry... but if you really want an upgrade over what you have onboard by your motherboard manuf. in terms of Audio, you should really be looking into getting an external DAC, not a Sound Card.
The advantages are numerous of having an external DAC.
1. There are almost no drivers required at all. All you need is a USB DAC Driver supplied by your OS developer (something which will auto-detect and auto-install on both Windows and OS X) to allow your PC to send the raw audio data to the DAC.
2. Because the DAC is external, you do not suffer any interference from components in your PC which could potentially affect sound quality.
3. There's almost no CPU overhead since the data is transferred raw to the DAC, and from then on the DAC does its business of converting the digital music to analogue to feed into your amplifier.
Die Sound Card.
Almost
Well that's fine if you use it for music 'Entrope/S.S', but in games you need interaction and updates for positional audio and they don't do that to dolby format on the PC.And the most popular on-board codec is the realtek range, which for some unknown reason never had fully working drivers for EAX (no occlusion), so you still end up having to get an audio card or pick a specific motherboard that doesn't use realtek but still is one you approve of
Not that creative is the one you'd want to pick of course, nobody trusts them anymore even if they hire people to pretend they make spontaneous positive comments.
bestowed upon consumers
Creative is amazing! great support too!what an innovator
Creative are about money and marketing, drivers and customers are the last thing on their mind. They released some Linux drivers for their x-fi cards, what a pathetic effort and an insult to anyone that had bought their cards and happened to use Linux