Hands-on with the Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty

We don't follow the FPS gear scene all that closely (if you couldn't tell—well, maybe a little), but when Sim Wong Hoo announced the X-Fi a couple weeks ago with a small cloud of hullabaloo, our ears definitely perked up. So how is the X-Fi Fatal1ty? Well, besides being one of the first ever sound cards that requires external power, audio quality on the device is apparently noticeably better than the Audigy 1 or 2, while also relieving some CPU usage in system audio processing. Sounds like a win-win if you ask us—so now we're just supposed to wait for the Creative takeover of the consumer PC audio world, right? Wait, what do you mean they're already to the gold standard?

[frankthechicken @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Sounds good, just wish there was a sound card with an optical output on the card, rather than on a 'drive'.

[SD @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Creative the gold standard? Puh-lease!!! Products from M-Audio or Echo Audio trample right over Creative with specs that matter (DACs, drivers).

[James Scott @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

#1: Buy an nForce2 based sound card that has the embedded SoundStorm audio chipset, Its always been 1000 times better than the Audigy cards in compatability, performance and quality.

NF7-S v2.0 Best motherboard EVER!

[Chu Chu @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

The funny part is everyone goes out and buys the latest and greatest expensive sound card and then hooks them up to their shitty "computer speakers" or headphones.

Your sound is only as good as the weakest component in the system and if your speakers had the label "computer speakers" on the box, they are probably crap. Now what do you get when you pipe good sound through crap speakers? Yeah you got it: crap sound.

[Inferno @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

im just getting fed up of all this fatal1ty branded crap and if the drivers arent so screwy as there other cards i might consider it

[Hig @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Chu Chu: That is why I've got my trusty Polk Audio RTi38 speakers :) Though, as you say, beware of the "weakest component" and right now, that's probably my amp.

[Ted @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

creative is stupidly making this device an analog only item. With out dolby digital live it cannot stand up to the hda x-mystique or the turtle beach ddl sound cards.

its just an analog piece of overpriced crap compared to the hda and the turtle beach

[Jon Acheson @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

All I'm saying is, I don't want my sound card to ever need a cooling fan.

[nemi @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Hey guys, there are much better sound cards out there formuch less money, like the X-mistique

http://www.xoxide.com/bluegears-xmystique-ddl-gold.html

Which encodes 3d audio positioning in games etc. to Dolbly digital *in Hardware* (like the Nofrce2 sound storm) so you can get DIGITAL 3D sound (optical or electrical) out of your PC to a nice quality Cinema Hi-Fi amp (I agree with #4, most people get fooled into think that even $300 computer speakers are any good).

[Fer. @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Are you really trying to compare 640Kbps Dolby Digital (at it best) with the 24bit/96Khz uncompressed audio that the x-fi will deliver?

[cuby @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

the bottom line is that anyone who buys ANY creative-branded PC audio hardware is getting ripped off. the quality of their equipment and their driverse are scandalous. this comes from personal experience, and the experiences of many, many others, the least of whom are the beneficiaries of the most recent class-action lawsuit against creative.

spend a half hour to get acquainted with the many other audio solutions available. you'll get quality components for the same price, instead of ratty PCI crapfarts marketed towards lazy fartcraps.

[nemi @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Yes #10, I am comparing the *EMI free* optical dolby digital output on 7.1 channels over a 24bit/96Khz analogue output generated in perhaps one of the most EMI noisey enviroments in a users home (the inside of your average PC case).

Also, we are talking 3d sound (in games) here, there is nothing stoipping you doing a wide veriety of PCM bit rates on optical output in STEREO or or digital pass thru of a DVD you are watching on any cheap sound card such as the X-Mistique or a VIA Envy24 based card (mine cost $25).

[Ian Jardine @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

This whole sound card thing has me confused and this "reviiew" has not helped either. All the comments arenpersonal like "sounds better". We need to proper audio review of the performance.
I desire a sound card which can be integrated into a HTPC to provide the best surround sound experience in 5.1 and also 7.1 formats. Plus it whouls be able to play my music ripped into mp3s at 192 kbps.

[brickballs @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

wow, theres a lot of people here flaming Creative!

I'll admit that they are pricy, but imho they deliver damn fine quality.

I dont know all of the others mentioned, but I believe that m-audio is a software based card meaning you get nice sound at the cost of a few fps

I dont upgrade to every card they release, but i just might swap out my audigy with one of these new cards

[CraigM @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

It would have been nice had the reviewer used some sound testing equipment rather than just the assertion of the reviewers music sounding better. Anyone have one of these cards with an audio test bench?

[James Scott @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

#13 They dont deliver any quality what so ever. The cards are complete rubbish from the hardware to the software.

[Altheus @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

You're all missing the point. Every "Dolby Digital Encoding On-the-fly" card we've used has been software encoding, including the awful SoundStorm from nVidia. It's amazing what people will think if you pay enough sites to give it great awards.

As for m-Audio and other pseudo "pro" cards, they are decent, but again, not going to provide anywhere near the same hardware acceleration, worse SNRs and ultimately support EAX 4.0.

If anyone here is old enough to remember the Aureal Vortex2 (the real SB16 killer), you'll remember A3D, the best sound tech implemented in game yet. You'll also remember that Creative bought that technology and finally it's being used.

The idea of someone basing an opinion of a soundcard based on how "kick-ass" an MP3 sounds pretty much somes up the knowledge most people (inc. previous posters) of desktop entertainment sound technology.

[Kelbear @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

I've got a creative sound card, but it's primarily for gaming. Truth be told, what you pay for when buying a creative card, is to feed off the benefits of its monopoly. Game developers do their best to make their games compatible with creative cards. They don't always manage to make the game and card work together bug-free, but they are definitely spending the most time on creative cards because it's got the powers of monopoly. They've got to cater to the majority.

I'm shooting for a piece of that when I use my audigy 2 zs. That said, I don't doubt at all that there are far better sound cards for a lower price. But I didn't buy the Creative sound card for it's abilities, I bought it for it's monopoly power.(And will be buying a seperate sound card for music soon).

[TxdoHawk @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

I guess if you are deadly serious about your PC audio this might be interesting...but personally I use a set of Z-340's and the built-in sound on my motherboard. I'd rather spend the money on a component system.

[Chu Chu @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

TxdoHawk, I'm the same way. 95% of the sound that comes out of my PC is either samples from a game which are inevitably low quality/compressed, streamed audio(compressed), or mp3's (compressed). For my usage, there is no point in dropping the bucks for high end computer audio when all I'm doing is pumping low quality or compressed music/game sound effects through it.

Now if you are into music production on your PC then it's a different scenario altho you probably aren't looking at a creative labs soundcard in this case.

I spend the money on my HT components in the living room where the sources are much higher quality.

[Benny @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

#17: "If anyone here is old enough to remember the Aureal Vortex2 (the real SB16 killer), you'll remember A3D, the best sound tech implemented in game yet. You'll also remember that Creative bought that technology and finally it's being used."

Yes, and I remember using a Vortex2. In 1998. Creative has bought several companies, both before and after Aureal, and they still can't match the quality of a 7 year old card.

For what they did to Aureal and what they did(n't do) with A3D, not to mention their horrid drivers, overpriced cards and shoddy parts Creative will never see another dime from me. I would gladly laugh while that company fell into bankruptcy, which considering they're holding several million in stock right now, is hopefully very close.

[Tucker @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

#13 - just get a any card that has digital output and pipe it to a real home theater receiver setup. As far as playing your 192kbps encoded mp3s, if you have a) a computer b) a sound card and c) speakers you will be able to do this. Other than the touch of god, nothing is going to make an mp3 sound any better. If you want your ripped CDs to sound better, encode them at a higher bitrate or don't compress the files at all. A lot of this talk about super fidelity is silliness for home users, since as others have pointed out the speakers will be your weak point. Not to mention if you have a collection of DVD-A music, you're probably not going to be playing it on your computer anyway.

[gezepi @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

I got a chance to listen to this with what looked like typical headphones and it sounded great. Of course I'm used to pretty crappy sound so maybe a real audiophile would say otherwise. The most impressive thing to me was its ability to emulate 5.1 surround with stereo headphones. The 24bit Crystalizer (or whatever they called it) was pretty cool too, it basically remastered the sound and made it sound a lot better.
I'd love to have the card but it is just far too expensive. Also it's pretty lame they slapped Fatal1ty's name on it.

[northreign @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Have a Audigy 2 Pro sitting in the box. The extra internal I/O box went bad and well that was that. The card's drivers wouldn't install anymore nor did the card like functioning anymore. The external box's have got to be better though a bit laggy probably. Made me dislike Creative a lot. Never had a problem with a sound card till spending $230 on the Audigy 2 Pro which did what? Nothing more.

I notice no real quality difference from that card to the motherboard sound I'm using now. 6 $600 (each) speakers arrayed in 6.1 and the Creative cards sound no better than others.

Dolby Digital Live cards are your best option. And the prices of these new X-FI cards are really out there and there's no real digital. Sure it may get you 5fps more in a game or 10fps more over using a DDLive enabled card. Put that extra money the X-FI's cost into a new video card and you'll get much more than 10fps.

HTPC you'll want DDLive. 1 cable and all digital. Makes sense.

[Steve @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Lots of confusion and misconception in this comment list. There is not a lot of overlap in the requirements of the gamer, the audiophile, and the musician. What gamers require, overall, is dynamic range. Give 'em thump in the sub, and they'll tell you the card/amp/speakers are AWESOME. What an audiophile usually wants is for someone to tell them that a certain meter revealed some incremental advantage in THD over another system; preferably one owned by their brother. What a musician wants is a fairly flat response curve and a high signal-to-noise ratio.

Creative has a pro line for audiophiles and musicians. It's called "EMU". I own an SBLive! Platinum, an Audigy2, an Emu 0404, and an M-Audio Delta 1010. The Emu has, hands down, the best SNR and THD; the M-Audio (which, by the way, is NOT 'software-only', whatever that means, has excellent SNR, and is a 'pro' card, not a 'psuedo-pro' card unless you have LOTS of money and little sense) is a close second. The Audigy 2 is noticeably higher quality than the Live, but not even close to the EMU or the M-Audio. And those results are from tests with m-audio and roland near-field studio monitors and spectral response analyzers, not just my subjective impressions of sounds. I'm wagering that Creative will not intrude into the market space of the EMU systems with a consumer card. It doesn't make business sense.

[Steve @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Lots of confusion and misconception in this comment list. There is not a lot of overlap in the requirements of the gamer, the audiophile, and the musician. What gamers require, overall, is dynamic range. Give 'em thump in the sub, and they'll tell you the card/amp/speakers are AWESOME. What an audiophile usually wants is for someone to tell them that a certain meter revealed some incremental advantage in THD over another system; preferably one owned by their brother. What a musician wants is a fairly flat response curve and a high signal-to-noise ratio.

Creative has a pro line for audiophiles and musicians. It's called "EMU". I own an SBLive! Platinum, an Audigy2, an Emu 0404, and an M-Audio Delta 1010. The Emu has, hands down, the best SNR and THD; the M-Audio (which, by the way, is NOT 'software-only', whatever that means, has excellent SNR, and is a 'pro' card, not a 'psuedo-pro' card unless you have LOTS of money and little sense) is a close second. The Audigy 2 is noticeably higher quality than the Live, but not even close to the EMU or the M-Audio. And those results are from tests with m-audio and roland near-field studio monitors and spectral response analyzers, not just my subjective impressions of sounds. I'm wagering that Creative will not intrude into the market space of the EMU systems with a consumer card. It doesn't make business sense.

[Anthony @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Give me a break. I have tried just about every soundcard under the sun, over the last few years.

All around Creative sound cards are far more stable, have better performance (lower cpu usage / hardware acceleration), and much, much, more compatibility with a wider range of software.

Sure if you want a professional music studio or some specialized niche, maybe some other card would be the better choice.

In my 25 years of personal computing experience I have learned a few givens.

1. Buy the best equipment you can afford, anything less and you won't be satisfied.

2. Stick with the standards (i.e. wintel, Creative, ATI / nVidia, etc ...)You will have far fewer issues with your system.

I am so sick of the "my card gets 1.4 more fps than your card" syndrome. Who gives a crap whether Doom 3 plays at 300 frames a second or 250. If you want to overclock or tweak for pleasure, be my guest. If you just want the fastest, most stable, kick-azz machine, don't.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Anthony.

[Mike @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Hmmm... I have used Creative Sound Cards for quite some time. It is now, all that I own and will own. So, some of you don't like them. That's fine, you are free to buy anything you like. I have the Klipsh 5.1 amp/speaker set. I'm quite content on the performance and will be buying one of the X-Fi cards for my next system. And while I don't count every FPS that I get from a system, I do like the idea of keeping it of the load of the CPU. I'll be looking at the new AGEIA PhysX Processor card when it becomes available as well.

My opinion is that you can't go wrong with Audigy or better.

Mike

[Nick @ Dec 24th 2005 12:22AM]

i have a Denon AVR-2805, and a Audigy 2 zs, with the analog preouts hooked up from my denon and using the 3 line outs on my audigy 2zs, i used to have rotel equipment but no preouts for surround sound on my comp. i have Energy C2s, Infinity center channel, JBL E250P and im about to replace my rear JBL N24s with my Energy C2s and put energy c-9s as my fronts, that is a pretty damn good budget audiophile system. i am deciding between the x-mystique (or X-plosion when it comes out) or the Creative X-fi, what would give me the best sound quality for music and games, i like the idea of the dolby digital live and the DTS live. but i also like the idea of eax 5. My dad and brothers are audiophiles and they have high end audio systems and speakers, so id like to know which would produce better music quality and make my gaming experience equal to now or better? which should i choos?