Legit Reviews

Not sure if this is the right place for this post, no sound section here. In any case, I'm looking for a good sound card for my first build, and i cant decide between these 2 cards. I already bought Creative inspire spreakers that are listed in my sig to go with either of these cards. Basically what i want to know is what does the Pro version has that the cheaper card doesnt. There is a pretty big difference in price between the 2: extreme gamer is at $59 after rebate at newegg, the Pro is at $124, not at newegg though, i found it for less elsewhere. Thats $65 more, which i dont mind paying if its worth it. I owned several cards from Creative starting from SB 16 and ending with SB Live! 5.1 which i gave away to friend along with 5.1 speakers cause i'm getting new system and new card and was always happy with their performance. So if anyone has experience with these cards or just wants to comment i'll greatly appreciate any replies.

just go with XtremeMusic. XRAM is a waste of money.

If you think you might want to buy Creative's outrageously overpriced X-FI I/O console upgrade at some point, you could think about getting the XtremeGamer Fatal1ty. But I'd only think about it, I wouldn't actually do it. If you want the drive-bay expansion you can get the original Fatality cheaper than the striped down version. (Newegg, of course you have to do the rebate thingy.) I'd get the cheap one, the XtremeGamer is the type of card Creative should have been concentrating on for the past 5 years instead of building ever more expensive packages, all the while losing market to cheap motherboard solutions. Is it too little too late? Who knows, I'm not sure anyone even cares anymore. When was the last time a customer said anything nice about Creative Labs?

Hey Gyus, thanks for the replies.
First , i want to ask InsolenceandHeresy a question: can you please elaborate on your suggestion? Why is Extereme music would be better than any of the Extreme gamers? From what i understand, ExtremeMusic is not designed with gaming in mind, the reviews i've been reading at newegg say that that Extremegamer cards are better for gaming, so let me know what the reasoning is. Also do you own the card and game? If yes id like to hear what was your expreience like.
And what is the deal with XRAM, is it supposed to be a good thing and useful thing?

Now on to the second reply. Toebut, so you are suggesting that i either get the original Fatal!ty (not the gamer one) or Xtreme gamer for $59, right? I still would like to know what the difference is between the Fatal1ty series and regular X-Fi like the cheaper Extreme gamer card, which one would be better for games?

As far as putting a kind of word for Creative, like i said in my original post, i was happy with the few cards i had experience with, though i dont know how the newer Audigy and X-FI series cards work cause i never had one.

The customer reviewers on Newegg are just being rolled in by marketing BS because XRAM (which is on the Fatality edition, it's onboard audio memory which supposedly increases performance) is present. It's useless. They're also being rolled in by the "Gamer" and "Fatality" names. Most pro reviews actually show that XRAM and the 'Gamer' editions have no tangible benefit on performance. No matter which edition, the same audio processing Xfi chip is used.

I have a XtremeMusic card, and really compared to my old Audigy 2, I personally didn't feel much difference performance wise. Now audio quality wise, that's a whole another story.

Believe me or not, it's your choice, I'm just telling you the facts.

I have a XtremeMusic card, and really compared to my old Audigy 2, I personally didn't feel much difference performance wise.

I've benchmarked my onboard audio vs. my Audigy 2 ZS using 3DMark audio benchmark and I got the same score. Although I am not running a 5.1 or 7.1 setup or anything.

redboy wrote:Now on to the second reply. Toebut, so you are suggesting that i either get the original Fatal!ty (not the gamer one) or Xtreme gamer for $59, right? I still would like to know what the difference is between the Fatal1ty series and regular X-Fi like the cheaper Extreme gamer card, which one would be better for games?

As far as putting a kind of word for Creative, like i said in my original post, i was happy with the few cards i had experience with, though i dont know how the newer Audigy and X-FI series cards work cause i never had one.

I'd get this card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6829102006

With rebate, its the same price as the XtremeAudio and it has a spiffy heatsink! If you want all the extra crap, there is this card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6829102189

It's the same card being sold as the XtremeGamer Fatal1ty with all the "value added" stuff. I believe it's been discontinued though, hence the big rebate.

As far as performance differences, I would wager that there is very little between any of these cards. I don't have them all to test so it's only conjecture. It's obvious that the components on the Xtremegamer or Xaudio cards are cheaper - no gold platted speaker jacks, etc. But I doubt that it impacts the performance or sound quality. The only fundamental difference is the presence of XRam, Creative may pay a game company or two to include support, but it will never be broadly used. Which is why others are recomending the XtremeMusic, it has the higher build quality of the original X-Fi cards without the added expence of XRam. If you can find it and its cheaper it's a good option.

I have half a dozen Creative cards, including an ancient SoundBlaster 16 SCSI, all of which still work perfectly (or at least as well as they ever did). I'm not maligning their products so much as their business practices. Creative Labs has run roughshod over the sound card sector for over a decade and to what end? The overwhelming majority of PC's don't have discrete sound cards, they have cheap, tinny, audio codecs pasted on the motherboard. They have managed to compete themselves practically out of the market. Microsoft doesn't even allow hardware accelerated sound in Vista. Which brings me to what is likely the last good reason to get a Creative card, they are possibly the only company with the interest and resources to shoehorn hardware support into Vista. Of course anyone familiar with their drivers has to wonder how successful they will be.

Auzentech XMystique looks pretty badass. Solid state capacitors, gold plated, dedicated line in, and mic ports, made in Korea, not China. I'd say it looks very good for $57.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6829127001

Vista doesn't have hardware sound support? What about musicians?

Judging from what is being said here SB Extreme Gamer Fatal1ty pro is not worth paying all tthat cash for, so i'm not going to get it.

cyberneticimplant suggested Auzentech XMystique, which indeed looks pretty cool. Also Toebot's suggested to get the original extreme gamer which also looks good. and for $59 bucks you cant go wrong. So it will have to be one of these 2, they cost almost same too. I'll have to research a bit more, read some more reviews beforemaking the final decision.

Thanks to everyone who made suggestions.

"Vista doesn't have hardware sound support? What about musicians?"

I should have been more precise, MS dropped DirectSound 3D from DirectX 10. All existing games that use those API's are downgraded and run through the Vista software mixer. They lose all the 3D and EAX effects. I believe Creative is patching their drivers to translate DirectSound calls to the OpenAL API which is unaffected by Microsoft's capricious fiddling.

Toebot wrote:"Vista doesn't have hardware sound support? What about musicians?"

I should have been more precise, MS dropped DirectSound 3D from DirectX 10. All existing games that use those API's are downgraded and run through the Vista software mixer. They lose all the 3D and EAX effects. I believe Creative is patching their drivers to translate DirectSound calls to the OpenAL API which is unaffected by Microsoft's capricious fiddling.

That is very good info! Thanks!

Toebot wrote:"Vista doesn't have hardware sound support? What about musicians?"

I should have been more precise, MS dropped DirectSound 3D from DirectX 10. All existing games that use those API's are downgraded and run through the Vista software mixer. They lose all the 3D and EAX effects. I believe Creative is patching their drivers to translate DirectSound calls to the OpenAL API which is unaffected by Microsoft's capricious fiddling.

You need ALchemy.