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Creative - Sound Blaster 7.1 X-Fi Xtreme Audio Sound Card - (bulk version)
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| Description:
The Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio card from Creative provides a unique studio quality audio experience for mulitmedia applications, listening to music, and watching movies. The X-Fi Crystalizer, for example, restores the details and brilliance lost in MP3 and DivX compression and revives your audio source, while the X-Fi CMSS-3D amplifies music and films in stereo and surround sound. This sound card is efficient with most types of loudspeakers, including stereo loudspeakers. The Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio also offers unbelievable surround sound on classic headphones. Its compact design and optical digital output for a complete home cinema system connection makes it perfectly suitable for Media Center PCs.
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2/5 |
Its old technology marketed under the x-fi name...
(October 24, 2008) |
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My friend bought one of these and it does its job as a sound card, it makes sound heh, but apart from that it isnt any better than the onboard audio solutions of today (which are actually very good, onboard sound no longer sucks like it did 5 years ago) and in actuality this isnt an x-fi card. This card has the same chip that the old audigy SE had, the audigy SE was a value card back in the day so it wasent top of the line then and is even further from it now. Creatives line over the past 10 or so years has gone from soundblaster live! --> audigy 1 --> audigy 2 --> x-fi just to give you an idea of how old the tech on this card actually is.
The £30 this card costs could be better spent elsewhere (or not at all if you have a newer onboard solution) even when looking for a budget cards. Dont be fooled by the tag, this is not an x-fi card and doesnt even use the same drivers as the rest of the x-fi line. |
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5/5 |
Use with creative organiser 5
(October 21, 2008) |
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I have used this card for a while in my old computer. When used with the creative organiser 5 that came with my mp3 player you get a very useful "record what you hear" function. In other words anything coming through your speakers can be recorded. I am trying to get this going again on my new computer as the old one died and the only problem is working out the motherboard sockets as these products no longer define what socket is needed in the description. There visible differences in the pictures. The sound is good for music. I rarely play games so can not commment on that aspect of these cards. |
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4/5 |
Awesome quality at this price......
(January 08, 2008) |
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I just bought this card a couple of days ago and contrary to the other reviewer above, for me at least, this card was a synch to install and set up.....let it be known that I personally do not use 5.1 speaker systems, yet...or windows media center so I cannot vouch for the card's reliability there, however there is an audio equaliser setting in the card's software package that came with the disc, and also contrary to the other reviewer above, the only BSOD issue of any kind I have had was with one game, that being splinter cell double agent, occurs quickly in game and reboots the whole PC after a crash....however this happened on my old sound blaster audigy value card also so I think that is more of an issue with splinter cell double agent and it's hardcoded software settings for hardware audio and nothing so much to do with this card, I also have quite a meaty system however nothing is overclocked and I have a good brand power supply...so I can only assume that the guy having BSOD issues in every game has a problem with combined heat output or power supply issues, or a faulty card in some way, because I can confirm I havn't had any of those problems at all and none that I didn't have on my old creative card.
I am giving this 4 stars as I am delighted with this card and the only reason I didn't give it 5 is because of the splinter cell issue aswell as the fact that there is only one audio mode that being Entertainment mode, there is no Game mode or Music Creation mode on this particular card so it would seem. Delighted with my purchase, and the price. Bargain.
Lastly, please bare in mind that I have only had this card for a couple of days and it is a quality card, however take into account that so far I have had no issues with the hardware, in a non overclocked system except for the issue already stated which to call it a drawback or problem of this card would be highly unfair and wrong in my opinion.....however this doesn't mean I won't run into any problems in future....my old creative card was fine all along and hopefully this one should be okay too, I don't envisage any problems unless the hardware fails. This is my first review, and I decided to do so because this card so far has some rather derogetory scores on here so I thought I would even it up a little bit based on my initial experience with the card in my setup. This card is a no brainer for the price it is going for if you are simply after a card that does what it says on the tin and flat out sounds great in what it can do. |
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3/5 |
Has potential but...
(December 07, 2007) |
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Very difficult to install and get set up. The 5.1 channel upmix works, then doesn't, more fiddling then it works, then it doesn't. When enabled I noticed a lot of gain pumping and a really weird stereo sound field so probably not worth the bother anyway. Crystaliser also a bit much if you have quality speakers (very tizzy sound) but helps when on its 'minimum' setting. Vista's media centre doesn't see the card at all so you have to leave media centre and fiddle around in the control panel then come back again. Can't find a graphic equaliser anywhere, nor seperate volume controls for each channel? It does have great sound quality but the software side of things is a total ball ache... |
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2/5 |
Disappointing
(December 02, 2007) |
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After installing this product I started getting random BSOD crashes and a background hiss to my speakers even on low audio settings. Also after messing around with the settings and equaliser for half an hour or so I finally managed to get sound output that was almost as good quality as the soundblaster PCI128 Ive been using for the last 7 years or so... All in all not what I was expecting from a product that sells itself on its great sound quality! |
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