PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series

5 comments

1. 

   Jerome T. Czeikus on December 14, 2009 at 2:11 am

   So far I have had no success with this card. No sound when the speakers are plugged in to the XFi card; these same speakers work just fine when plugged into the motherboard’s audio out connections so I know they are not the problem.
   
   Had to reinstall XP Pro because of other problems and the XFi card’s recognition of the speakers did not change. No indications in Device Manager there are problems.
   
   The Creative update site installed two updates with no problems – so the lack of sound appears to not be detectable by anyone or any thing but me.
   
   Problem forwarded to Creative but no reply received.

2. 

   Allen C. Piper on December 14, 2009 at 2:19 am

   The first pci-x soundcard I bought was from Asus, but it had a tendency to crash on me, so I switched back to Soundblaster. That card, too, acted up – to a point where I feared that it was my motherboard instead of either card that was producing the failures. Amazon sent me another Soundblaster, and this one hasn’t caused so much as a hiccup. The only thing that really concerns me is the cabling that connects the card to the I/O box – you can easily put them on wrong.

3. 

   BlackCoffee on December 14, 2009 at 4:06 am

   No doubt, Creative is the leader in sound reproduction. Much better than the onboard chip. Clear crisp sound, easy installation.

   If you want the best, get this setup.

4. 

   Jan Sershen on December 14, 2009 at 5:44 am

   Pros: Puts every sound card I’ve owned in the last fourteen years to shame; clarity is amazing; makes speakers sound as if you paid $500 for the set (that is, if you paid at least a hundred bucks for them).
   
   Not only for gamers who like lots of loud sounds and don’t care about nuances in the music. In Entertainment mode, great for listening to Classical music.
   
   I/O drive looks really cool mounted in computer bezel.
   
   Easy installation of both hard and software (with exception noted below in Other stuff).
   
   Driver on CD works perfectly with Win 7, 64-bit OS.
   
   Fits in PCI-ex1 slot directly above my Sapphire 5770 card in the PCI-ex16 slot. Also, when mounted, it probably won’t interfere with chip set cooler.
   
   Cons: Driver “confusion”*.
   
   My particular PCI-e card does not fully seat in motherboard slot unless I tip it in at an angle (card attachment plate will then not line up with screw hole–but there are ways to arrange things ;>).
   
   The cost? Who cares? This thing is really worth the money
   
   Other stuff:
   
   I read every review on every site I could find before buying this sound card. I was worried about all those reviews that stated that their unit arrived DOA, that the analog and digital cables were too hard to plug in and that the software sucked.
   
   Here’s what I found out about the these situations . . .*DO NOT INSTALL the latest driver you downloaded from Creative’s site BEFORE installing the driver from the supplied CD. What you will get is a message during install that the card is not connected properly and then driver installation will stop. Upgrade the driver AFTER installing the one supplied on the disc (then you won’t have to send it back to Creative or Amazon because it arrived “dead”). By the way, during installation of the software, check the 64-bit box if your OS is WIN 7 or Vista 64-bit).
   
   I don’t understand the criticism about the cables being hard to seat properly. Possibly, the person is attaching the cables upside down in the slot (easy to do if you don’t look carefully at the plugs–the digital plug CAN be installed upside down if your force it in). Attach the cables properly and then you won’t have to send it back . . .).
   
   My card does not seat properly in its PCI-e slot. I must put it in so the body of the card is at an angle. I drilled a hole through the attachment plate for the screw hole–problem solved.
   

5. 

   Hosea Brown on December 14, 2009 at 8:13 am

   If you’re looking for amazing sound quality, this is the sound card for you. I bought it because I wanted the front panel, and my X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro (the previous version) didn’t have one. I never thought anything could compete with the XtremeGamer, but this card does! I’m impressed. Don’t hesitate to buy it.

   Here’s a brief summary of some of its awesome features.

   X-Fi
   
   Technology that plays sound at higher quality than it was recorded at.
   
   X-Fi includes:
   
   CMSS-3D
   
   Removes the effect of the distance between your ear and the sound source. Without CMSS-3D, if you have a good ear, you can tell how far the speaker is from your ear. The sound changes with the distance. Even if you don’t have a good ear, the sound may seem strange after switching from speakers to headphones. CMSS-3D removes this effect. It works even better in games. 3D positional audio makes you hear 7.1 surround sound through regular stereo headphones.
   
   EAX environmental effects
   
   It’s called that for a good reason. It’s not just any reverb. If you’re recording your own music, you can add professional quality reverb. But in gaming, it gets even better. Games can add their own algorithms to make it sound like you really are in the Grand Canyon, for example, without bogging down the CPU, wasting space with multiple versions of game sounds, or producing an audible transition from one set of game sounds to another.
   
   Crystallizer
   
   Upconverts all sound to 24 bit and intelligently restores the details to MP3s.

   Voice morphing
   
   Makes your voice sound like a robot, an alien, a soldier, or whatever you want.

   Noise cancellation
   
   Supports headsets with two microphones. This works better than headphone active noise cancellation because one microphone records your voice, and the other one senses all other sound, which is removed by the sound card.

   Entertainment mode, game mode, etc.
   
   Makes it easy for you to save specific settings for what you’re doing. So when you switch to game mode, EAX effects and other game settings are automatically enabled, and when you watch a movie or play music, switch to entertainment mode to turn off EAX effects so you don’t hear double reverb.

   X-RAM
   
   Boosts game performance by offloading game sounds from the main memory.

   This sound card has lots of handy inputs and outputs. Standard headphone/microphone jacks and RCA inputs on the front panel and headphone – 7.1 surround jacks and digital optical input and output on the card.

   I had no trouble installing this sound card in a PCI-express slot. The only thing it didn’t do was connect to a standard front panel – they want you to experience the full sound quality of the included panel. The panel was also a bit tight in my 3.5 inch front panel bay. I’m sure it would fit fine in a 5 inch bay with the included 5 inch adapter. A couple of minor problems were that the registration software did not work on Windows 7 x64 and the automatic update software tried to download every version of the driver update, right back to the beta versions. This isn’t a problem because I don’t enable automatic updates; I can just download the latest driver from the website. You don’t even have to do that; you can just install the software with the included CD. The drivers are very solid and always have been. I have not had any problems of any significance.

   Specs:
   
   Output: digital/analog 24 bit 192 Khz stereo – 7.1 surround
   
   Input: digital/analog 24 bit 192 Khz stereo recording

   I am amazed by the sound quality of the X-Fi Titanium and by the quality of Creative products in general. Creative also has very good support. I highly recommend this sound card to everyone. Don’t hesitate to buy it!