X-Fi Titanium Fatality Pro $39.99 AR @ Frys

Wow - great price . . . too bad I already have one and don't need another.

I also agree with everything you wrote.
 
Picked up the Titanium HD last week for $99 deal. Thought that was good but this is much better.
 
Frys...

I don't know which is better... Fry's or MicroCenter? Times like this though, I really wish I had a Fry's around me.
 
maro said:
Some people hate CreativeLabs and their drivers. Some people dislike Jonathan Wendell and all his 'Fatality' crap. I'm a part of both groups, and yet I still own one of these.
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I am just like you in this regard. But I needed DTS/DDL encoding so my receiver would work in surround for games.
 
Any advantage at all (other than the apparent great price after MIR) to get this over the regular PCI X-Fi XtremeGamer I'm currently using?
 
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Damn, I got this last round for ~$60AR to upgrade my main rig, and handed down my XtremeMusic (modded) to the office rig. Now I feel like getting this for the office :D
 
450 said:
I don't know which is better... Fry's or MicroCenter? Times like this though, I really wish I had a Fry's around me.
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The nearest MC is 5 hours away and there is no Fry's near me either. :(

This a really good deal. I'm looking to replace my PCI X-Fi Fatality XtremeGamer with a PCI-E card, but I don't want to break the bank and this would be perfect...if I had one near me. :p
 
Great deal for this card, I use one myself. Unfortunately, Creative has really shitty driver support, but it's worked fine for me in Win7 x64 so I guess it's not a big deal to me personally.
 
I really need a PCI-E sound card and this would be great for the price.

Too bad i don't have a Fry's near me...... Dammit!
 
Never mind~ Looked up the answer over there (looks left...), picking one up on the way home, why not experiment?
 
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FYI I don't think these do SPDIF - COAX out which was a big deal breaker for me :(
 
Evil Scooter said:
Any advantage at all (other than the apparent great price after MIR) to get this over the regular PCI X-Fi XtremeGamer I'm currently using?
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Mostly just that when your next system (or the one after the next) drops legacy PCI support you probably won't be able to get a replacement for anything close to the same price.
 
Its coming up for $69.99 for me... I use my onboard audio but for 40 bucks I was going to pull the pin, oh well.
 
DanNeely said:
Mostly just that when your next system (or the one after the next) drops legacy PCI support you probably won't be able to get a replacement for anything close to the same price.
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I dunno. I'm not seeing the PCI bus going buh~bye that soon. I could be wrong.. it's happened b4. :D But this card on sale here was released in "08" and I'm thinking there will be others between now and the next time I upgrade as I just tossed together this i5-2500k setup.

I guess my question was... what (if any)are the tangible differences between this X-Fi Titanium Fatality Pro and my X-Fi extreme gamer? Would it be worth the swap even for $40 AR? Heck.. even CL sells the exact same card minus the "Fatality" badging for a few bucks less.
 
Outside of legit sound mixing and audio work, what's the point of a sound card anymore? I know the "they offload work from the rest of the system" story is a bunch of bullshit, and some people have actual 7.1 systems that could probably make use the added card benefits, but I feel like the majority of people probably use a 2.1 system, which wouldn't really be all that different than onboard sound.
 
May be it's just me, but I find the sound card make things sound crispier/louder and clearer than onboard. I had one in my old set up, built new one with onboard audio only, and totally notice the difference.
 
Is anyone in San Jose able to confirm if this deal is available in our area as well? Newspaperads is only letting me see the weekend pages of the Fry's ads and I don't see this on there.

Also, can anyone shed some light on what form the rebate comes in? i.e. a prepaid Visa, check, etc.
 
Evil Scooter said:
I guess my question was... what (if any)are the tangible differences between this X-Fi Titanium Fatality Pro and my X-Fi extreme gamer? Would it be worth the swap even for $40 AR? Heck.. even CL sells the exact same card minus the "Fatality" badging for a few bucks less.
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i went from an X-Fi XtremeGamer to an X-Fi Titanium non-fatality, which is essentially the same card minus the EMI shield. while i did notice a difference between the two using my HD280 headphones, IMO it doesn't justify $40. the XtremeGamer is still a fantastic sound card and the only way i would ditch it for this deal is if you must go PCI-e. in my case my only available PCI slot is between my GPU's so i was forced to look for a PCI-e sound card. if i were in your shoes i'd keep your XtremeGamer and rest easy knowing you're already getting great sound.

Jon55 said:
Outside of legit sound mixing and audio work, what's the point of a sound card anymore? I know the "they offload work from the rest of the system" story is a bunch of bullshit, and some people have actual 7.1 systems that could probably make use the added card benefits, but I feel like the majority of people probably use a 2.1 system, which wouldn't really be all that different than onboard sound.
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if nothing else, for the far superior DAC. obviously if you're running a generic set of $10 PC speakers, improving the source will have little effect. on my HD280 headphones, which are considered very 'entry-level', the difference is night and day between on-board and dedicated.
 
Curses, no Fry's here in Idaho and its $70 on their site. All the cool deals are at these places, I want one here :(
 
450 said:
Frys...

I don't know which is better... Fry's or MicroCenter? Times like this though, I really wish I had a Fry's around me.
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they BOTH fucking suck because neither one is near me...end of discussion...
 
Evil Scooter said:
I dunno. I'm not seeing the PCI bus going buh~bye that soon. I could be wrong.. it's happened b4. :D But this card on sale here was released in "08" and I'm thinking there will be others between now and the next time I upgrade as I just tossed together this i5-2500k setup.

I guess my question was... what (if any)are the tangible differences between this X-Fi Titanium Fatality Pro and my X-Fi extreme gamer? Would it be worth the swap even for $40 AR? Heck.. even CL sells the exact same card minus the "Fatality" badging for a few bucks less.
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According to leaked slides Intel's removing it from the X79 chipset (LGA 2011) due out in Q4 of this year. I suspect a lot of the 1st generation boards based on it will have a PCIe-PCI bridge chip in place, but once USB3 moves to the chipset (or intel adds a few more lanes to the southbridge) in the generation after that there won't really be a need for it except to support legacy devices. My gut feeling is that assuming Intel launches a new chipset for Ivy Bridge PCI slots will be rare to non-existent. I haven't seen any rumors about AMDs plans.
 
Jon55 said:
...but I feel like the majority of people probably use a 2.1 system, which wouldn't really be all that different than onboard sound.
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I'm temporarily downgraded to just a single pair of Promedia 2.1s (usually have two) and even then there is no comparison between onboard Realtek audio and a dedicated sound card (both this Titanium and especially my modded XtremeMusic)
 
Jon55 said:
Outside of legit sound mixing and audio work, what's the point of a sound card anymore? I know the "they offload work from the rest of the system" story is a bunch of bullshit, and some people have actual 7.1 systems that could probably make use the added card benefits, but I feel like the majority of people probably use a 2.1 system, which wouldn't really be all that different than onboard sound.
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The DAC and mixing capabilities are the primary difference. I have a Xonar DG, it adds a good deal of "crispness" and natural-ness (at the same time, which seems like they would contradict one another, but they don't when you listen to it) to music. Hi-Fi and Dolby Headphone are great for music and gaming, and with a headphone amp it drives my ATH-AD500s which have 66 Ohms of impedance very nicely. For $30 shipped, which I paid around 4-5 months ago, I'm very pleased.

And yes, like Porter and you both mentioned, you have to have gear that can harness the sound card. Cheapo K-Mart speakers aren't going to benefit much if anything. And yes, it doesn't offload anything from the CPU. With how fast today's CPUs are, the benefit of that would be negligible, I personally have no ill feelings toward this fact.
 
DanNeely said:
According to leaked slides Intel's removing it from the X79 chipset (LGA 2011) due out in Q4 of this year. I suspect a lot of the 1st generation boards based on it will have a PCIe-PCI bridge chip in place, but once USB3 moves to the chipset (or intel adds a few more lanes to the southbridge) in the generation after that there won't really be a need for it except to support legacy devices. My gut feeling is that assuming Intel launches a new chipset for Ivy Bridge PCI slots will be rare to non-existent. I haven't seen any rumors about AMDs plans.
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Points well taken. But by that time (if they hold to the roadmap that is) will there be a better sound card available? Like I said.. this card's technology is already 3 years old. By the time PCI is actually "dead" I'm thinking there might be a better sound solution available. That and I'm a cheap bastage.. even with that this is a schweet dealeo at $40 AR.

zerodeefex said:
Dude, you have to click the "Weekly Specials" tab:

http://newspaperads.mercurynews.com/...alse&pagenum=2
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In all fairness to him, I did just that just yesterday and it did not show up in the SJMerc ad.
 
Deathskythee said:
will be returning mine. I didn't any huge difference over onboard.
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What kind of speakers are you using?

I picked mine up earlier today before work. Will test it out tomorrow and see how it sounds (although my speakers are in dire need of an upgrade too)
 
For me, going from onboard sound to X-Fi didn't make much difference. Now going back to onboard sound I couldn't stand it!

I already have this card (non fatality) but I'm buying this for backup.
 
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