X-Fi by Creative

[Icarusintel]

http://www.soundblaster.com/products/x-fi/technology/

Wow....
Holy shit....
If this thing does half the stuff they say it does, well, I'll sell my brother to buy it
I've only been using built-in audio up til now, even when I built my new rig, and I'm glad I hadn;t bought a sound card yet, cause I plan on getting this right when it comes out
This should be awesome since I use headphones since I don;t really have the cash for an awesome speaker system

Sorry if this has been posted before, I looked around a bit before posting but I'm bound to miss something

 

[jonbob]

I'll be very surprised if it does what it claims. Since when were Creative ones to deliver on promises?

I've been waiting for proper 24-bit audio for ages, but I still don't see it.

 

[Dumb Dude]

Nevermind..:x

 

[Shamrock]

It redirects me to www.microsoft.com..

 

[Cole]

Copy the link and paste it in your address thingy.

 

[Dumb Dude]

When you click the link and the new window opens this shows up in the adress bar:

http://http//www.soundblaster.com/products/x-fi/technology/

^ You need to delete the 2 sets of http:// Or do what Minerel said.

 

[Icarusintel]

When you click the link and the new window opens this shows up in the adress bar:

http://http//www.soundblaster.com/products/x-fi/technology/

^ You need to delete the 2 sets of http:// Or do what Minerel said.

link fixed, sorry about that, my fault

 

[Hazar]

http://www6.tomshardware.com/consumer/20050705/index.html

another reference

 

[dream431ca]

Battlefield 2 has this support..interesting to read...Might get me one of those.

 

[sinkoman]

Same here, although I have a few Q's.

Why exactly is this particular soundcard so hyped up? I use Creature II speakers with my system, and they sound awesome, but perhaps it wouldn't be worth it spending the extra money on a good soundcard when I don't have an awesome speaker system.

And again, why this card in particular? What's so special about it? Sorry, I don't know much bou soundcards.

And lastly, a question that's been bugging at me for ages, would buying a soundcard relieve pressure sound processing pressure from the Chipset and or proccy?

 

[dream431ca]

Same here, although I have a few Q's.

Why exactly is this particular soundcard so hyped up? I use Creature II speakers with my system, and they sound awesome, but perhaps it wouldn't be worth it spending the extra money on a good soundcard when I don't have an awesome speaker system.

And again, why this card in particular? What's so special about it? Sorry, I don't know much bou soundcards.

And lastly, a question that's been bugging at me for ages, would buying a soundcard relieve pressure sound processing pressure from the Chipset and or proccy?

If the sound card is powerful enough it could dramatically reduce the load on the CPU. This new sound card is 3.2Ghz fast..the fastest ever made. So it will make framerates faster because the CPU is not focusing so much on the sound so much.

 

[sinkoman]

If the sound card is powerful enough it could dramatically reduce the load on the CPU. This new sound card is 3.2Ghz fast..the fastest ever made. So it will make framerates faster because the CPU is not focusing so much on the sound so much.

Thank you. That's the main reason I wanted to get a soundcard, to take the load off the CPU.

 

[3ssence]

I was under the impression that your average decent soundcard, in my case, audigy 2 ZS, takes the load off of the CPU anyway, as it has its own processor and carries out all of the sound processing ?

 

[duffers20]

I was under the impression that your average decent soundcard, in my case, audigy 2 ZS, takes the load off of the CPU anyway, as it has its own processor and carries out all of the sound processing ?

I believe thats correct.

 

[3ssence]

So as i understand it, it is unlikely to improve game performance, as present soundcards already take the load off of the CPU, therefore there is nothing left for new cards to do to improve game performance, just to provide better sound and a greater audio experience.

 

[Pesmerga]

But, for alot of us, we have onboard motherboard sound chips, which suck and anything would be a step up.

How expensive is this thing going to be?

 

[3ssence]

Ah ok, i would imagine that the top end cards that come out will be similiarly priced to the audigy 4 at present, or around that area

 

[Cole]

Though it could take even more off the cpu load than previous cards...

 

[3ssence]

But i would imagine that the present top end cards do actually do that already.

 

[Pesmerga]

Can I get a $ ball park?

 

[3ssence]

well, based on the present audigy4 price in the us, which is 279 dollars, i would say around that ballpark, this is of course with the front 5.25" bay controller that currently comes with the audigy4 pro, but i would imagine they would sell a version without this controller that costs less, but this is just a guess on my part

 

[Icarusintel]

I'll pay whatever it costs, since I have onboard sound... was pretty reluctant to shell out the bux for an audio card til now... this looks good enough to be worthy of my money, hopefully the reviews will agree

 

[holydeadpenguins]

The x-fi can do more instructions per second than a prescott. Then again so can my athlon xp... The audigy 4 uses the exact same chip as the audigy 2, it just was like 5 percent faster lol.

 

[jonbob]

I still smell a marketing-fuelled lie.

 

[Dumb Dude]

Meh, to me, sound is just sound. Just as long as I can get multi-channel audio I'm fine, plus the Audigy 2 ZS will be doing its job quite nicley for years to come.

 

[3ssence]

ditto

 

[DrDevin]

Have you all checked out the specs of the card ?:

http://www.soundblaster.com/products/x-fi/technology/architecture/specs.asp

and read any previews of it ?:

http://gear.ign.com/articles/617/617336p1.html

The X-Fi has 4096 internal audio channels compared to the Audigy 2's 64 8 real time effects compared to 4 and many times the processing power.

However the best feature of the card is noise free converting and restoration of signals. The card can upconvert mp3's to 96/24 audio making it sound much better (check out what IGN had to say). It can improve any audio source by restoring information lost when it is converted from DVD to games and it is not specifically designed for any 1 of them plus it does not need any code support.

I know the audigy 2 will be around for a long time but I like my audio and since I dont have an audigy 2 right now I will pick one up if they are reasonably priced.

 

[duffers20]

The new card sounds pretty impressive, but I'm happy with my Audigy 2 ZS for now