Creative Announces Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD and USB Sound Blaster X-Fi HD Audio

[pr0n Inspector]

ATI "soundcards" are purely digital.

Also, current ASUS drivers have a major design defect: it cannot match the sample rate of the card to that of ASIO/KS audio on the fly.

example:
foobar using ASIO, one 44.1k song, one 48k song.
if I play the 44.1k first, the card will switch to 44.1k but when the 48k song plays the card still think it's 44.1k audio and it will play slower! and as you can imagine, 48k then 44.1k would cause the 44.1k song to play faster.
dbl clicking or using pre/next will re-initiate the stream causing the card to switch to the new sample rate.
Xonar Audio Centre settings only affect the default sample rate and as such are useless in this situation.

ASUS said they'll fix this some day....and that was ten months ago.

 

[Tannhäuser]

if I play the 44.1k first, the card will switch to 44.1k but when the 48k song plays the card still think it's 44.1k audio and it will play slower! and as you can imagine, 48k then 44.1k would cause the 44.1k song to play faster.

HOLY S***! And I always had the feeling, that the tracks played with Winamp on my ASUS P5W DH Deluxe-Board with a Soundblaster-Card were running faster than those, played with my Car-HiFi! This COULD be possible??

 

[imperialreign]

Kinda funny how the audio market has been going the last couple of years - more users have gone over to ASUS, the more users the Xonar recieves, the more complaints are cropping up about their drivers. I still swear that in over 90% of all cases, it has to do with the users hardware/software configuration, more-so than the drivers themselves.



Anyhow - not exactly buying into the THX hype. Sure, it's marketing, but all companies are guilty of "logo brandishing."


What I find shocking, though , are the major design departures here for creative - user-replaceable OPAMPs, solid capacitors, much higher speced output quality . . . if I didn't know better, I would think that this is an Auzen licensed X-Fi that has been licensed back to Creative. This card is boasting (per specs) better output quality than even the ELite Pro . . .

Either way, I think it's a major step forward for Creative - both in the competitive output quality sense, and the competitive pricing.

 

[SetsunaFZero]

Why no one has said this so here it goes

WHO CARES!!!

I hate Creative bad drivers and bad all around support,Why have this when there is far better sound cards on the market

1,ASUS Xonar 1.3HDMI
2,Forte
3,The Vanilla Xonar
4,Christ the built in sound on most ATI cards will sound better..

This is just my opinion.

same here, i very disappointed bout creative -.-"
bought a XF-i Titanium some months ago the sound is a bit better but the drivers are still bugy creative :shadedshu
the hw is good but creative's driver support is pure bs. My next sound card will be an asus xonar
I'll never buy an creative product again

 

[kenkickr]

They needed HDMI out also for bitstreaming hd audio

+1 to that. For being roughly $200 bucks I'd spend $50 more and grab the Auzentech X-fi Hometheater HD or the Asus HDAVI if I could do it all over again just to have the hdmi bit sampling.

 

[Animalpak]

Why no one has said this so here it goes

WHO CARES!!!

I hate Creative bad drivers and bad all around support,Why have this when there is far better sound cards on the market

1,ASUS Xonar 1.3HDMI
2,Forte
3,The Vanilla Xonar
4,Christ the built in sound on most ATI cards will sound better..

This is just my opinion.

Yes, when changing effects in the console X-fi sound is not changed at all seems to be a joke, I have a logitech 5.1 system Z 5400.


Try a Xonar and you will impress every button has a real and concrete change in sound reproduction.

 

[Tannhäuser]

Asus HDAVI: Is the black thingy a catch basin für a leaking water coolage system?

 

[dimensi]

Onkyo SE-200PCI Limited Edition ... no one come close .... IMHO

 

[FreedomEclipse]

IMO it looks like they're trying to compete with the Asus Xonar STX somewhat with the added benefit that it fully supports EAX unlike Asus's DS3DGX EAX emulation which is pretty hit or miss when it comes to Direct Sound games (I payed £140 for a STX to find out the hardway -_-)

Id say this is a kick ass card so long as driver support pulls through

 

[dimensi]

Id say this is a kick ass card so long as driver support pulls through

second that!

im M-Audio Revolution 7.1 user ... till now they closed the development of Windows 7 drivers .. crap

 

[KainXS]

Trustudio is only X-Fi with a different name and different tweaks.

old news though . . . . .

 

[bim27142]

creative driver support sucks big time as it has always been. i've been dying to look for a xonar in my area and damn just couldn't fine one. i'll stick with realtek on-board for now using the mobo's optical out going towards my z-5500... sounds good for me now...

 

[WarEagleAU]

Id still pick this card up. Id really love to have an all in one Auzentech with the HDMI, but also not just for hometheaters but music, games, movies, etc.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

creative driver support sucks big time as it has always been. i've been dying to look for a xonar in my area and damn just couldn't fine one. i'll stick with realtek on-board for now using the mobo's optical out going towards my z-5500... sounds good for me now...

If your a gamer, id highly suggest you stick with Creative. Xonar's are good card but are a bit of a let down when it comes to gaming until they manage to stablise the DS3D EAX emulation engine they use. but for music & movies it will wipe the floor with the XFi's. as far as driver support goes - its almost none. since Windows 7 started beta testing 7100 till full on RTM release there has only been 3 driver updates, their not all bug free either so a fair few people have had issues with their cards on Windows vista/7 systems. & from what i have seen & heard, Asus staff dont moderate/visit their own forums for feedback on drivers. leaving pretty much in the shit when they have problems but on the other hand there are a handfull of really knowledgeable audiophiles that lurk around the forums & they are a great help if you have minor issues but unfortunately their help doesnt stretch to driver support.

so for the time being, pick up a really really cheap XFi Xtreme gamer or something & save your pennies

 

[LaidLawJones]

I bought an Azuntech Prelude on sale as kind of fill the empty slot idea. I could argue that this was the best part of build. The difference in quality was incredible. Even through my somewhat cheesy logitech (Z2300) 2.1 speakers. The sound through my headset is fantastic.

This is the only sound card I have used and I am sure that there are better cards out there.

If companies would do more demo's, then they might sell more cards. The consumer has to be able to hear the difference. Graphics are cool, but when you couple decent graphics to an awesome sound card, the immersion becomes that much better.

If I was to buy a new system and could afford say $600 (dreaming) on a card, I would spend $400 on a card and then get a sound card.

The sound card companies have to get the average Joe/Jane to listen to the difference. They could sell more cards and could then sell cheaper etc.

Long post short. If you never thought about a sound card and think onboard is o.k., then save a little bit up and look for a sale and buy one, whichever brand you like. $100 cdn for mine on surprise sale.

 

[fluxc0d3r]

yay for good sound. I wonder how my p7p55d deluxe onboard compares against the titanium? I think it does a pretty darn good job and I for sure have the speakers to test it lol

Your motherboard's VIA onboard sound is horrible. It has a lower dynamic range, stereo crosstalk, etc than most realtek chipsets. The best onboard chipsets are found on Asrock motherboards, such as the Realtek alc890, or get the alc885 on DFI motherboards, which are top performers in onboard sound. People think the alc889 is the best chipset right now, but in fact, its worse than the alc890 and the alc885. This information was based on tests conducted at hardware.info.

 

[pjladyfox]

Normally I'd be pretty excited by this but based upon past experience with Creative this is just another money-grab where they quickly "obsolete" their older cards stopping all driver support for them. And then there is the other issues I see right off the bat:

Titanium HD

- No provision for Toslink output
- No provision for analog optical output
- No provision for HDMI output (mainly for those using NVIDIA video cards)
- Removal of 3.5mm front/center/rear jacks
- Addition of unnecessary metal bracket/casing around the card itself
- Removal of support for XP
- Needlessly expensive compared to previous generation cards
- Historically buggy drivers and over-complicated interface
- Historically buggy 64-bit drivers

X-Fi HD

- No provision for analog optical output
- No provision for HDMI output (mainly for those using NVIDIA video cards)
- Removal of 3.5mm front/center/rear jacks
- Removal of support for XP
- Historically buggy drivers and over-complicated interface
- Historically buggy 64-bit drivers

If I'm going to spend $200+ on a sound card I'll go with one based on the C-Media CMI8770 or Oxygen HD and never again on a Creative card. I got burned with the X-Fi Fatal1ty and I'll not do that EVER again.

 

[jasper1605]

Your motherboard's VIA onboard sound is horrible. It has a lower dynamic range, stereo crosstalk, etc than most realtek chipsets. The best onboard chipsets are found on Asrock motherboards, such as the Realtek alc890, or get the alc885 on DFI motherboards, which are top performers in onboard sound. People think the alc889 is the best chipset right now, but in fact, its worse than the alc890 and the alc885. This information was based on tests conducted at hardware.info.

That was painful to read for my bank account Thanks for putting it straight though good sir

 

[johnnyfiive]

I've never had any issues with my X-Fi Xtreme Gamer and anyone who thinks on-board is better than even the lowest X-Fi card needs to have their ears checked. Take any decent pair of cans and you will hear a complete difference in overall quality. Why do you think my BC2 knife kills are so high? Cause I hear people and sneak around them with ease.

 

[LaidLawJones]

I concur. The first time I heard a guy coming up behind me, I spun around and emptied a clip into him. It went from a knife kill for him to a stat for me. Love that sound card

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

Uh, are they insane? Releasing more useless pcie hardware when the crap they already have on the market doesn't even work? Put this money into drivers instead and you'll get a larger profit from increased sales then you would from adding a new half-asses highend part. The majority of their driver issues they won't even acknowledge as existing.

 

[REVHEAD]

I hve a xfi Fatality, and a Xonar Essance STX, and a Xonar 1.3 for my HTPC, I see this new XFI card as a way to compete with the latter 2 cards, EAX is dead, but positional sound will never die.

I play BFBC2 on windows 7 with 7.1 emulation, and running a set of Sennhieser HD595s, I have had both my XFI and STX in game and the Asus Version is in a legue of its own, I am now falling out of favour with Creative.

This new card looks good on paper and most likely is, but not having the larger HP and Mic jacks is a real let down , because for such a high end card most users would or should be running high end Headphones, other than that the card looks awsome, but I see no reason for someone not to buy the cheaper Essance STX with superb sound.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I play BFBC2 on windows 7 with 7.1 emulation, and running a set of Sennhieser HD595s, I have had both my XFI and STX in game and the Asus Version is in a legue of its own, I am now falling out of favour with Creative

Had any CTD's with that STX in Win7+BC2??? its happend a few times to me

 

[RejZoR]

Looks like an ASUS Xonar STX competitor.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Looks like an ASUS Xonar STX competitor.

thats exactly what I said