Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS soundcard review

Performance is supreme, but would you splash the cash for one?

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2005/10/31/creative_xfi/1.html

 

For the love of god, why yet another Fatality product? Im clearly jelous of how much money he's making.

 

Quick little correction for you - the SB Live had the breakout box initially - not the Audigy.

Had a play with one of these on a PC I was building - It does soud pretty damn good.

Simon/~Flibster

 

the real question is how good is the Xtreme music version?...all well and good having john wendel's products being pimped but i wanna kno about the more affordable option..is it really that good and how would it stand up to my soundstorm(yes i kno its old but its damn good)...

also i wonder what _Dom has to say about this.

awesome article...keep up the good work chaps!

 

I can tell you already: "Anything less than a 10 grand vinyl kit is crap audio fidelity."

 

yeah haha i was thinking that!!!...

 

To me it is a very big disapointment that their are no optical/digital outputs on the back of the card. I do not want to run audio cables from the front of the pc to my amp. And the breakoutbox does not fit into a HTPC the place where this card "could" have been perfect for. I mean with the THX certified options, DD, DTS and such..

It is a damn shame...

Update:
Reading the specs on the SBlive site, i noticed a 3 in one jack that supports digital i/o (with AC3 and PCM stereo support)

FlexiJack (Performing a 3-in-1 function, Digital I/O1 / Line In / Microphone) via 3.50mm mini jack


Still a shame because of no optical on the rear

 

"used to hack their PCs up to a niche, geeky device known as the iPod"

Hook?

Other than that, very well written article which seemed to cover all the concievable bases.

 

Bugfixed

 

Yikes! $277 for a sound card? I could see for studio production type stuff but.... wow. The onboard memory is a pretty cool idea. It might not be too long before we start seeing sound cards that need water cooling.

 

The Xtreme music is basically the same card but without the onboard ram so audio performance is just as good. It beats the Soundstorm as you can see from the tests.

 

yep, as it says at the end, if you're not bothered about the X-RAM for gaming, and don't need the front audio input / output jacks, the Xtreme Music card is half the price, and still does EAX 5.0 and has all the top quality sound of the Fatal1ty card.

If you've got the money, the Fatal1ty version is outstanding, but for the budget-conscious gamer, the Xtreme Music version is still better than an Audigy, and way better than on-board sound.

 

Seems if you get this card, then you love high quality music. I know there's gaming features, but as the article said - very difficult to notice. I also take into account the extra voices which may prove useful in future.

But I suggest, if you want to make use of that music quality, then you'll need a good amp and a set of speakers - some good cables for that. You know - adds up to ALOT of money. So if you've got that far, you might aswell add a CD seperate...

So get a cheaper card for the games where you can't really hear the difference, and a music system for music.


Just a thought...

 

Have never been a man into audio to much as my speakers have enough wattage to blast my ears off. But this X-fi thing, I really want to try it out. I want to get more $$$ head phones then my Sony MDR-V300 and check out how it works.

 

I've been using an old SBLive5.1 for awhile now. About a month ago, I went a LAN and a buddy of mine had just put together a pretty sweet system with one of those X-fi card in it. We were playing the FEAR multiplayer demo and he wanted to see what the game was like on my machine (lowest spec at the LAN). I was expecting the graphic to be better (X850XT > 9600XT) but the sound comming off the card was incredible.

Very nifty card. One is definatly going to end up in my next machine.

 

Crystilizer

I was doing some DJin this summer, and I could really hear the difference if I was using a lower quality sound card or onboard sound. I had a laptop with a audigy lap top card, however this didn't turn out to be much of a help because the DJ software that I used really didn't recognize the different channels on the Audigy (front, rear, surround) although the sound quality was up there.

However, even though the audigy improved my sound, it still wasn't as good quality as using CDs. It does take a trained ear and good speakers to hear it, but MP3's just don't have the quality. I wonder what this new crystalizing feature will do to improve MP3's, my guess is its a lame effect and won't really be able to make up for crappy quality.

Any thoughts?

 

Well I run A yamaha 5.1 Amp (rx-v357), and a set of Gale silver moniter hifi speakers, they run from the onboard sound on my ASUS a8nsli main board by the optical lead.

Currently it sounds fantastic, but would it be worth me plumping for the new card? as i would have thought that currently its the amp that does all the work?

any advise people~?

 

I've always used the top audigy cards paired to a set of top quality headphones (Pioneer DJs and Grados).. it beats anything else out there... but at almost £200 for a soundcard!!!...

I want this, but I think i'm going to have to plump for the cheaper £100 version.. I just can't justify the extra expense for 64MB ram.

 

You forgot the daddy of ISA soundcards the AWE 64 I like to pick those up from ebay for a few pounds. THe stereo quality on them is superb compared to Ac97 onboard audio but people just don't want them because there ISA. With a yamaha daughter board of a simlar generation with loads of extra midi voices on you can get some awsome midi instruments that sound asif your actualy listening to the cd.

http://www.classicalarchives.com/ <--- some good midi files for testing midi ect. instead of using "flourish"

 

Looks nice, but way too expensive for me. I can't even afford to spend that on a video card, much less sound. BTW, is this the first pre-modded sound card (with the little red light)?