Creative's Sound Blaster X-Fi gets ExpressCard makeover

Creative's long-standing X-Fi lineup is set to take on yet another member, as the company unveils a truly mobile form that will utilize your oh-so-lonely ExpressCard slot. Sure, you could've been enjoying the X-Fi niceties on your lappie for some time now via the external USB module, but the forthcoming iteration tidies up the breakout-box mess by cramming the bulk of the magic right inside your laptop's casing. The Xtreme Audio Notebook card touts an optical out / headphone jack, optical in / microphone port (seen after the jump), and a connector to sync up the presumably included external module, which will likely add even more connectivity options for use in park. Sadly, there's no word yet on when this device will hit store shelves, nor how much it'll cost you when it finally does, but if you've managed to hold off on buying one of the less glamorous external options in hopes of this one becoming a reality, you're probably sold regardless.

[Via DailyTech]

[Josh Warner @ Mar 25th 2007 1:09AM]

...but will it have drivers which can be described by any term except "dismal," "terrible," or "nauseating?"

I have two Creative cards and let me be the first to say: the company which fields cards which perform as advertised and have good, stable driver support (INCLUDING Open Source) will have my business instantly. The only way to get decent performance out of these things is to use foobar2000 and ASIO or kernel streaming. Every BSOD I have gotten under XP on two different computers has been directly traceable to these cards and their unacceptably unstable drivers.

Oh, and for those of you about to get suckered by the X-Fi "24-bit Crystallizer": foobar2000 can upconvert standard audio to 24bit/96kHz. In software. It takes a bit of processing power, but drastically improves the sound of the Audigy cards, due to the fact that they natively process audio in 48 or 96kHz, not the 44.1kHz of standard CD-quality sound.

[AndrewNeo @ Mar 25th 2007 1:37AM]

Phew, good. I saw 'Creative's Sound Blaster X-Fi gets ...' in my RSS reader and thought that the X-Fi XtremeAudio PCI card I just bought and isn't even here yet was already outdated. Oh well, I'm sure it'll happen just after the return period is over, instead.

[JD @ Mar 25th 2007 2:45AM]

My god. The nerve these people have. I really just wish they would release halfway decent drivers for the products they have already released. I have an X-fi xtreme music. I also have vista. Long story short, it's a nightmare. I hope the fact that Asus is going into the soundcard business will light a fire under creative's ass, because the only thing worse on my vista disk than my pathetic Nvidia drivers is my horrifically pathetic X-fi drivers. Come on creative, get your priorities straight here.

[Jaapski @ Mar 25th 2007 7:12AM]

Nice and all, but when is the mp3player with built in X-Fi coming?

[Bman21212 @ Mar 25th 2007 11:22AM]

Some people have complained about Creative Drivers, but they always seem to work with me. I run XP and have the USB Xmod sound card for my laptop. This works without fail, as makes sound quality amazing, without taking over my processor. The Expresscard soundcard is what I was looking for six months ago. I might end up getting it anyway, because it is so sleek and I dont have to carry around yet another usb device.

[eh @ Mar 25th 2007 5:55PM]

X-Fi's are a waste of money now. Its fine for XP but half the features dont work in Vista because Vista dropped support for all the EAX stuff. Creative knows this yet they still come out with new x-fi versions without telling people that the card will be crippled in Vista, I think thats criminal. I have an X-Fi too, if I would have known that Vista wasnt going to support all the proprietary Creative BS then I never would have gotten one. Creative needs to come out with a new chipset instead of releasing new versions of a card that is guranteed to never work properly in Vista.

[DarkMan @ Mar 25th 2007 7:52PM]

@eh

MS didn't dropped support for EAX in Vista, they dropped the DirectSound API in DirectX 10. That way X-Fi cards and other soundcards and programs(like winamp) that use directsound don't work in Vista. It not Creative fault for driver problems for a missing API, it's Microsoft fault for removing it in the first place.

Also, if you want your X-Fi card to work in Vista. Just to there site and download the OpenAL drivers and ALchemy software. It's no directsound, but a good work around.

[Eh @ Mar 26th 2007 12:47AM]

I know its not creatives fault for coming out with the X-Fi before Vista, but it is their fault for continuing to sell things like this without alerting consumers when they know full well that its listed features will never work in Vista.

The problem with alchemy is that it doesnt work for all games, they have to manually add support. And relying on Creatives driver team to come out with frequent updates to support games is like relying on your dog to do your taxes.

[dave @ Mar 26th 2007 4:58PM]

I have an Xmod in my car and a Sound Blaster Audigy ZS for my notebook. I hooked the xmod up to my laptop and compared it to my audigy ZS and I liked the Audigy ZS better in terms of sound clarity. The Xmod is great for a car though.