# SupremeFX II sound card



## smartphone (Nov 25, 2007)

HAI GUISE

So um, is this card comparable to X-Fi? It comes with high end asus motherboards.

Will I get 3D upmix effects(CMSS2) on it? Dedicated hardware acceleration? Or is it just your regular onboard sound on a separate PCB? Is it worth buying eXtremeGaming($70) over this card?

Thank you.


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## Darren (Nov 26, 2007)

smartphone said:


> HAI GUISE
> 
> So um, is this card comparable to X-Fi? It comes with high end asus motherboards.
> 
> ...



SupremeFX II'S onboard sound is nothing special, it will support EAX 2.0 and Direct Sound so in that respect it will be dedicated hardware acceleration. But if your planning on using digital/coaxial then it will make no difference whether you use SupremeFX II or the eXtreme Gaming card because all you will get is stereo or pro logic II presuming your AV receiver supports it. But then again if you have a receiver why would you want to use 3D upmix effects? Suppose it all depends on your speaker setup, can you please list it?

Bare in mind that EAX has been more or less abandoned with the new game titles, due to his openAL and Vista situation.


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## smartphone (Nov 26, 2007)

I'm using Altec Lansing 5.1 speakers with analog connection.
I like to play mp3 with surround effects and gaming.
All I care about is sound quality and the 3d effect. That's it.


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## Darren (Nov 26, 2007)

smartphone said:


> I'm using Altec Lansing 5.1 speakers with analog connection.
> I like to play mp3 with surround effects and gaming.
> All I care about is sound quality and the 3d effect. That's it.



Well in that case the X-FI Extreme Gamer would be better only because it supports EAX 5.0 opposed to EAX 2.0 from the on board, however EAX is almost dead so I couldn't justify spending extra money just for that feature. Altec Lansing 5.1 speakers are not spectacular good speakers, so I really doubt you will notice a difference. Best bet is to try the on board for a few weeks, and if your disappointed buy the creative card after.


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## Mussels (Nov 26, 2007)

Darren said:


> Well in that case the X-FI Extreme Gamer would be better only because it supports EAX 5.0 opposed to EAX 2.0 from the on board, however EAX is almost dead so I couldn't justify spending extra money just for that feature. Altec Lansing 5.1 speakers are not spectacular speakers, so I really doubt you will notice a difference. Best bet is to try the on board for a few weeks, and if your disappointed buy the creative card after.



+1 to what he said - try the onboard first and see how it fares.


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## btarunr (Nov 26, 2007)

When designing the ROG series of boards, ASUS completely ran out of space to add the audio subsystem. So they simply put all the on-board audio stuff (An Azalia compliant codec + a bunch of good-looking solid capacitors, neatly covered with a EMI shield that has the supremefx LED and a sticker. That's all. Comparable with the X-Fi? Can't blame you, you don't know much.

No, the Supreme FX is just an audio riser like the DFI Karajan and Bernstein audio risers and the audio riser cards that come with some Abit boards. It is in all aspects inferior to any XFi card. For that matter even some C-Media based cards.

If you really wanted a non-Creative card that sounds just as good, HT Omega Claro Plus is the one. This is the best sounding non-Creative card available in the market.


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## Ketxxx (Nov 26, 2007)

smartphone said:


> HAI GUISE
> 
> So um, is this card comparable to X-Fi? It comes with high end asus motherboards.
> 
> ...



That doesnt say much about the card.. what mobo do you have? at least from that people can look the mobo up and research the sound on it.


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## btarunr (Nov 26, 2007)

I own a XtremeGamer card too. I really wouldn't mind paying even $100 for this card, for what I get. Believe it.


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## Ketxxx (Nov 26, 2007)

I used an X-FI in a friends system, and I can honestly say I wasnt impressed with it at all vs what I was using at the time which was a ADI1988B CODEC, the sound quality on the ADI stomped the X-FI. (yes the same speakers were used on both)


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## Specsaver (Nov 26, 2007)

I have my X-Fi connected to:

-Inspire 5.1 set (for movies)
-pair of JBL bookshelves (for audio work, mixing etc)
-lousy speakers built into my screen (iiyama 2200ws - that's for use at night, they have NO power and squash volume terribly enough not to wake anyone up)

I can honestly say there is no difference ONLY when listening to music via iiyama built-in (they are likely to be about 0.03W RMS  With any better speakers the difference in audio quality is quite apparent.
I guess , the better speakers you have the more difference you hear.  

Can't use onboard audio once you hear music from a proper source like X-Fi.

That's my opinion, but there is more to it. Like off-loading CPU, and this is not only in games. See tests INQ run some time ago to compare CPU use when encoding mp3 and such, differences are not negligible:

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inqui...t-of-sound-processing-on-cpu-use-investigated


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## btarunr (Nov 26, 2007)

Ketxxx said:


> I used an X-FI in a friends system, and I can honestly say I wasnt impressed with it at all vs what I was using at the time which was a ADI1988B CODEC, the sound quality on the ADI stomped the X-FI. (yes the same speakers were used on both)



The only reason you could've found that is because the guy wasn't with proper settings like CMSS 3D, etc. X-Fi crystalizer makes a very good DSP that no software can ever emulate.

The X-Fi eats all onboard codecs for breakfast when it comes to gaming. With 128+ hardware voices (compared to 16 hardware voices by ADI1988B). And ofcourse, EAX 5.0 and the OpenAL integration.

A gaming PC without X-Fi is like a Christmas choir with just two singers.


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## Darren (Nov 26, 2007)

btarunr said:


> A gaming PC without X-Fi is like a Christmas choir with just two singers.



Unless you have an Auzentech X-meridian


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## btarunr (Nov 27, 2007)

Darren said:


> Unless you have an Auzentech X-meridian



X-Meridian is OUT OF PRODUCTION.

Besides the CMI-8788 Oxygen HD has only 16 hardware voices so it's no better at gaming.

But I totally agree with you on the output-quality point. That card _was_ a multi-headed siren that sang real sweet with it's four Asahi Kasei (AKM) DAC's and OPAMPS. My Auzen X-Fi prelude has the same DAC. And it sounds on-par with the X-Meridian. Even better with the X-Fi Crystalizer turned on.

X-Meridian was the Marilyn Monroe of the sound card industry. Auzen abrupty stopped its production even before everyone could lay hands on it.


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## Darren (Nov 27, 2007)

btarunr said:


> X-Meridian is OUT OF PRODUCTION.
> 
> Besides the CMI-8788 Oxygen HD has only 16 hardware voices so it's no better at gaming.
> 
> ...



I thought the X-meridian had 128 voices? http://auzentech.officewebsiteonline.com/data/FinalComparisonChart1.pdf

Although the X-meridian is out of production, you have to respect Auzentech for continuing it's support indefinitely. Not that it needs much support as it's current drivers are practically flawless. 

I've yet to try the Auzentech X-FI prelude, I'm a bit put off because of Creatives flacky history despite reading good reviews.


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## btarunr (Nov 27, 2007)

Darren said:


> I thought the X-meridian had 128 voices? http://auzentech.officewebsiteonline.com/data/FinalComparisonChart1.pdf
> 
> Although the X-meridian is out of production, you have to respect Auzentech for continuing it's support indefinitely. Not that it needs much support as it's current drivers are practically flawless.
> 
> I've yet to try the Auzentech X-FI prelude, I'm a bit put off because of Creatives flacky history despite reading good reviews.



Those are driver-enabled software voices, fool.

The CA-20K1 audio processor on X-Fi cards (excluding Xtreme Audio) has Hardware mixing of voices where the OS relays raw stacks of audio data (samples) to the card and the audio processor does the job of translating them into the digital signal that either go to the SPDIF or to the DAC, OPAMP and finally to the speakers. 

Whereas in a card like X-Meridean, the hardware can take only 16 simultaneous voices. The driver makes the CPU do the mixing job for 128 simultaneous voices, depending on the speaker configuration and the audio channels required by the stream (stereo/quad/5.1/7.1), these 16 voices are allocated by the CMI-8788, the processed stream is delivered to the 8788 which simply forwards the digital signal to the DAC(s) and OPAMP(s).

If you ask me about the number of software voices of the X-Fi series cards, there are...hold your breath...65536.

Well, I'm a patron of Auzen too. I really like their support. Rumors run that Creative played foul here and gave its X-Fi technology to Auzen on the condition that they stop the production of the X-Meridean. They didn't want to have two competing high-end products from Auzen. Auzen is a small company with the hunger to grow. They had little choice but to abandon X-Meridean's production in the hope that X-Fi Prelude would make up for the sales (which it didn't). On the website, they simply gave a lame excuse that "We stopped production because of chipset unavailability". Bullshit. If that was the case, C-Media would list the CMI-8788 into "archived products" and not "flagship products". Secondly you have another card, the HT Omega Claro Plus that uses the same chipset and is very-much in production. It uses the DACs made by Analog Devices. Sounds awsome on my cousin's rig.


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## Darren (Nov 27, 2007)

btarunr said:


> Those are driver-enabled software voices, fool.
> 
> The CA-20K1 audio processor on X-Fi cards (excluding Xtreme Audio) has Hardware mixing of voices where the OS relays raw stacks of audio data (samples) to the card and the audio processor does the job of translating them into the digital signal that either go to the SPDIF or to the DAC, OPAMP and finally to the speakers.
> 
> ...



From what I've read the upgrade from an X-meridian to an X-FI is still a trade off, especially if running a 7.1 hi-fi system, because according to the specs the Prelude can only manage 92kHz in 7.1 opposed to 192kHz in 7.1 from the X-meridian. Why are they supposedly offering an upgraded card if they are downgrading the spec in one aspect?

Secondly I read some reviews where people are installing two sound cards together, usually one of the x-fi cards along with a DDL capable cards, I've yet to see the benefits of this, does it offer any more enhancements apart from having access to higher EAX features?


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## btarunr (Nov 28, 2007)

Darren said:


> From what I've read the upgrade from an X-meridian to an X-FI is still a trade off, especially if running a 7.1 hi-fi system, because according to the specs the Prelude can only manage 92kHz in 7.1 opposed to 192kHz in 7.1 from the X-meridian. Why are they supposedly offering an upgraded card if they are downgrading the spec in one aspect?
> 
> Secondly I read some reviews where people are installing two sound cards together, usually one of the x-fi cards along with a DDL capable cards, I've yet to see the benefits of this, does it offer any more enhancements apart from having access to higher EAX features?



You're right on the 192 KHz in 7.1 part. That's because there's a separate 48 KHz DAC per two channels, 4 DAC chips in all (4 x 48= 192) Whereas X-Fi cards use a single 8-channel DAC made by Cirrus Logic or AKM.

If you're good at cable-management, then two cards is not a bad idea.


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## Solaris17 (Jan 17, 2008)

hey guys im moving 775 and the asus board im looking at comes with one of these and i was about to start a thread but at anyrate....do you think this will be better than my live 24bit? i thihk mine supports eax 3.0 though....and i was also wondering does this have an onboard processing chip like the x-fi?


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## btarunr (Jan 17, 2008)

Solaris17 said:


> hey guys im moving 775 and the asus board im looking at comes with one of these and i was about to start a thread but at anyrate....do you think this will be better than my live 24bit? i thihk mine supports eax 3.0 though....and i was also wondering does this have an onboard processing chip like the x-fi?


^Nope, the SupremeFX does not support EAX 3.0 

It doesn't have any native processing. It's merely that ASUS ran out of space on the board to cram in audio circuitry so they just put it up into a neat looking audio-riser card with a Realtak codec, solid-capacitors and  neat-looking EMI shielding.


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## Solaris17 (Jan 17, 2008)

realtek? nvm i lied guess when i buy the board im selling that part of it


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## btarunr (Jan 17, 2008)

^I'm not sure if the card would work without with board as a single unit though it has the standard PCI-E x1 interface. Most ASUS boards that have riser cards such as SupremeFX and SupremeFX II have part of the connectors on the main-board, such as co-axial/optical SPDIF. I don't think the drivers would work for the card if it's used on any other board because the Realtek codec that's used conforms to the Intel Azalia specifications where the drivers coded are extremely specific to the Intel HDA bus on the motherboards' southbridge. And the one that ASUS packs with the X38 / P35 based boards are specific to the Intel ICH9R. So the compatibility with other boards/chipsets is highly in doubt at least from the driver POV.  

In short, the SupremeFX is just like the DFI Bernstein audio riser and the ones that ship with a few Abit boards.


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## BullGod (Jan 17, 2008)

smartphone said:


> HAI GUISE



This is a classic!


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