Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Sound Card Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
Staff member
Joined
May 18, 1997
Messages
55,620
Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Sound Card Review - Creative's latest Sound Blaster flagship sound card features its new SoundCore3D chipset along with a powerful headphone amplifier, a beam forming microphone, and the return of the company's popular front panel audio I/O bay. Is this card a worthy successor to its Audigy and X-Fi brethren?
 
So, it sucks for music and movies, but great for gaming. I got that. Their software still sounds as bloated and malfunctional as it has always been.

So, what card is good for music, movies, and gaming at the same time? I game with my PC, but I also watch BluRay movies, Netflix, and Hulu. (I don't even bother with the TV anymore.) This obviously isn't the card I'm looking for, so what is?
 
I normally don't do this, but I skipped to the conclusion and I wasn't surprised. I haven't purchased a Creative audio product since the Audigy 4. Do games even use CL tech these days? It's been so long that I forgot what the damn API is even called. Considering that audio acceleration is not needed with todays computers and game designers are using more open standards for sound, I'm puzzled that they even bothered releasing something this expensive in this day and age.

Damn, time flies, it's been 15 years Kyle?
 
I recently got the bare bones version and I agree with you that it sounds very flat in a 2 speaker setup. However, music becomes spectacular on this card with my Logitech Z-5500 5.1 setup, using the surround and crystalizer settings.
 
That's a great review.:p Thanks.

The overall package looks good and I am a big fan of the front bay from the X-Fi days....still have one as a matter of fact.

Too bad this is a poor product for music, or they may have had a customer.
About all I do with my main computer is game and listen to music.

Looks like I'll stay with the Azeuntech card I currently use.:D
 
Great review as usual [H]!!!! I have purchased most Soundblaster cards with every major release. This will be the first time in around 15 years that I WILL NOT be purchasing a newer card from Creativelabs. They have just really regressed in terms of quality and such. My HD Titanium will serve me very nice for a number of years to come...
 
I got this for gaming but I've been playing less and less FPS and listening to more and more music. Probably going to swap it out and go with an external DAC at this point. The one thing I really enjoyed about this card was switching back and forth from headphone to speaker on the software panel without having to go plug/unplug crap. The headphone amp is nice and it was great in BF3, CS, etc., and the positional audio is a nice feature for someone who plays competitively. For the majority of casual gamers, non-FPS gamers, and especially audiophiles, I would have to say there are better alternatives. It's a niche market card, so it's definitely not going to appeal to everyone, or even MOST people. But it's a nice card for those who need/want the features it does have.
 
thanks for the excellent review. have been waiting for one for a while now!

conclusion: seems like i'll stick with my x-fi for now.
 
Thanks for the review Kyle. I wish you would review movies as a side thing. I would save so much money from watching crap but I digress. I haven't installed a Creative product in years. Their software should be branded malware by all AV products. Honestly I would be surprised Creative would still be around in five years.
 
I wonder what auzen could do with one of these chips, hope it doesn't take as many years for them to get them as it did with xfi
 
If you're after actual audio quality and components meant for quality, rather than mass produced gaming audio, I still recommend sparing a PCI slot for a new or used M-Audio 2496 over this.
 
From personal experience there's nothing inherently wrong with Creative's hardware mostly, though they may be a bit overpriced.

The problem is software, and even though they've cleaned it up a bit I'm afraid of repeating bad experiences. These days for music/movie buffs a lot of users will agree that dedicated external USB DACs are preferred, and for gaming you don't really need the full bling of the Recon3d, a Xonar DG will do. I think the market for high-end gaming sound cards is seriously shrinking and if Creative wants to survive, they are going to have to aim for quality sound like Asus and Auzen instead of regressing toward niche gaming.

Creative is going to have to look toward more flashy gaming headsets to continue growth or even surviving.
 
Pretty much what I expected. I'm glad I went with getting a Titanium HD last week instead of one of these newer Recons.
 
I currently own an X-Fi Titanium and have had no problems with it until I upgraded to X79\ Sandy bridge E. Using the WHQL creative driver, I would get no sound - so I had to use the Beta driver they provide to fix it. I prefer to use WHQL drivers whenever possible but it seems to be working fine for now.

My problem with Creative is that the X-Fi is a better product than the Recon3d but because X-Fi is legacy\discontinued, they will probably drop driver support for later windows versions. Because of this and depending on how the reviews are, I will probably be switching to the ROG Xonar Phoebus soundcard from Asus when it comes out.
 
i have a Gen 1 X-fi Xtreammusic card and its still kick ass 6 years later
 
jpmeaney said:
I currently own an X-Fi Titanium and have had no problems with it until I upgraded to X79\ Sandy bridge E. Using the WHQL creative driver, I would get no sound - so I had to use the Beta driver they provide to fix it. I prefer to use WHQL drivers whenever possible but it seems to be working fine for now.

My problem with Creative is that the X-Fi is a better product than the Recon3d but because X-Fi is legacy\discontinued, they will probably drop driver support for later windows versions. Because of this and depending on how the reviews are, I will probably be switching to the ROG Xonar Phoebus soundcard from Asus when it comes out.
Click to expand...

not so sure on that there are a bunch of mobos out with X-Fi chips on them now (iirc these are software X-Fi chips not the earler hardware ones)
so i dont see them killing off driver support for them at lest
 
Still rocking an X-Fi Elite Pro with the breakout box. Loving it so far!

Hopefully they produce a version with the Sound Core chip that focuses on media experience. I'd like to see that comparison.
 
i just checked the dirvers page looks like you may get that Duracell take a look
Sound Blaster Recon3D Professional Audio
Click to expand...
WBpRUl.jpg

http://asia.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=872&product=21116
http://support.creative.com/Product...SET=prodfaq:PRODFAQ_21116,VARSET=CategoryID:1

but i dont see the card in the store page yet...
 
So basically it's a $150 or $200 soundcard that's mediocre but comes with a good microphone, and drive bay controls if you buy the most expensive version...

Seems like a bargain :rolleyes:

I still wonder these days, how exactly is it Creative is still in the soundcard business. Maybe if they'd drop all of the gimmicky gaming nonsense(since no one uses their APIs these days anyway), cut the MSRP, and use some superior components... they might have something worth buying. But with more stuff like this... I'm happy I haven't bought a creative labs soundcard since they bought Aureal and flushed their technology down the patent toilet.
 
Merc1138 said:
So basically it's a $150 or $200 soundcard that's mediocre but comes with a good microphone, and drive bay controls if you buy the most expensive version...

Seems like a bargain :rolleyes:

I still wonder these days, how exactly is it Creative is still in the soundcard business. Maybe if they'd drop all of the gimmicky gaming nonsense(since no one uses their APIs these days anyway), cut the MSRP, and use some superior components... they might have something worth buying. But with more stuff like this... I'm happy I haven't bought a creative labs soundcard since they bought Aureal and flushed their technology down the patent toilet.
Click to expand...

LOTS of people that dont know better they see "GAMING SOUND CARD MAKES YOU BETTER THEN EVERY ONE"
and buy it ... yea i know...

and they sell a lot of chips to mobo makers to put on boards
and lots of OEM cards to Dell and what not
 
I also skipped to the end of the review only because I had already heard a ton of bad things about this new product line from Creative. Namely, still the same ol' bloated software and that the hardware had been stripped down and cheapened.

No thanks. Oh, did I mention overpriced for what they gave you.

Basically the conclusion was spot on for what I had read.

Too bad Creative didn't want my money. I had been waiting for a long time for their new sounds cards and this junk shows up, Oh well.

Also, what's up with a shit load of different models?

Creative and others need to learn from the Apple business model and deliver a few very feature packed products with tons and tons of features, very high quality and very high performance, and absolutely spot on slick GUI that is not ... NOT bloatware or buggy. No one gives two shits about half ass voice changing software so leave it out. Leave that shit to the cheap ass companies. When will they ever learn.

Creative needs new management in the audio dept so we can get back the sound cards we love and crave. I still would rather have Creative in my PC but can't because they are bloated with software and from what I remember, buggy drivers. Anyways.
 
Good timing as I'm looking at maybe getting a new sound card.

But, this ain't it. This card seems to be a big pile of mediocrity, and a huge step backwards from the XFi.

Dammit.
 
Actually, the non-expansion bay version of this card has been working exceptionally well for me- on all fronts. It's been head and shoulders above the Asus Xonars before it and definitely the old X-Fi XtremeGamer I had sitting around as well.

The key for me with it has been finding the right control panel settings. With my 2.1 speaker set-ups, the key has been staying away from defaults- the proper set-up has been to set 5.1 Surround, no Center speaker, yes Subwoofer, no Rear pair speakers, full-range speakers front left and right, and bass redirection at default and subwoofer gain. For both my Z-4s and SP-2500s those settings have been incredibly effective, but any others have been horribad.

Otherwise, messing with the EQ to be anything other than flat without a purpose also seems to be killer with this card. That said, setting the Crystalizer to ~35% and likewise messing with some of the other settings in the THX Trustudio Pro in lower than default fashion for the sliders can be effective on an application to application basis.

Have also been loving the mic quality this card dishes out.
 
I'll stick with optical out from on-board sound to my pioneer elite receiver. Maybe they could offer just the plastic shell and led to make my case look nice.
 
From the review,
Maybe we need to take the "non-gaming" Creative SB Recon3D for a test drive and see how it compares?
Click to expand...
The Fatal1ty has already been stripped and photographed. The card has exactly the same components as the base model. Nothing is functionally different. The Fatal1ty adds two LEDs, a different colored cover on the audio chip, and the full card cover/shield. Here's the review from the Japanese site 4gamer. http://www.4gamer.net/games/004/G000421/20120107001/

As much as these new Recon3D cards are hated on, I might get the base model once it goes on sale. I really only want it for BF3 and the headphone amp.

Thanks for the thorough review. I've been watching for full reviews since the cards launched a few months ago. Everything you stated in your review matches up with what people who had bought the card have said on forums...not a card for anyone but a gamer.
 
I'm surprised that none of you have figured it out yet... This card is nothing more than the basic crap that is built in to modern motherboards. Creative have not designed this chip, all they do is CPU sound. They can get away with it because of the awful mess that MS made of the "modern" Win audio stack.

If you don't beleve me, just google this "new" chip, and see that its just a bog standard HD codec, running Creative audio processing software. No better than motherboard audio that comes with Creative's x-fi software.

Creative are on the verge of bankrupcy, and have almost no engineers left to design new chips. All there effort is put to software development. They no longer are able to develop new audio chipsets.
 
I stopped using a soundcard a year ago when i went to full digital out using HDMI from my video card to a home theater receiver. There are a few stumbling blocks, mostly old windows games that don't detect a soundcard but for the most part, I couldn't be happier.
 
Anybody that skips to the end and then commences to bitching, congrats, you entered into it with high bias.

You missed the descriptions for gaming sound experience which is barely touched on in the bottom line. The software (bloat) is much improved and has a low system footprint, Earl actually points out that there weren't any BSoDs, crashes or random reboots, there is a reason why an author would want to point that out. DanielK good graces may not even be needed, although he can improve it I'm sure.

While a lot of the bitching points are true (expensive, niche market), some are missing the big picture in that it does well what it's marketed for and nothing else does it as well (gaming sounds, headphone output & switching). XFi and Auzentech are still out there for the more well rounded sound cards.

I wish the card was more like $60 (base model like I have), but I've been enjoying it at the $92 paid, and haven't had a single issue with it. Creative realizes they overpriced this and the price has been coming down.

My 20 cents /inflation

Rylan said:
From the review,
The Fatal1ty has already been stripped and photographed. The card has exactly the same components as the base model. Nothing is functionally different. The Fatal1ty adds two LEDs, a different colored cover on the audio chip, and the full card cover/shield. Here's the review from the Japanese site 4gamer. http://www.4gamer.net/games/004/G000421/20120107001/

As much as these new Recon3D cards are hated on, I might get the base model once it goes on sale. I really only want it for BF3 and the headphone amp.

Thanks for the thorough review. I've been watching for full reviews since the cards launched a few months ago. Everything you stated in your review matches up with what people who had bought the card have said on forums...not a card for anyone but a gamer.
Click to expand...

True all that!

Stimpy88 said:
I'm surprised that none of you have figured it out yet... This card is nothing more than the basic crap that is built in to modern motherboards. Creative have not designed this chip, all they do is CPU sound. They can get away with it because of the awful mess that MS made of the "modern" Win audio stack.

If you don't beleve me, just google this "new" chip, and see that its just a bog standard HD codec, running Creative audio processing software. No better than motherboard audio that comes with Creative's x-fi software.

Creative are on the verge of bankrupcy, and have almost no engineers left to design new chips. All there effort is put to software development. They no longer are able to develop new audio chipsets.
Click to expand...

That Vista stack was a theasco and this might be what Creative finally calls a fix. I disagree about the comparison to on board, I have one of those XFi soft on boards with the Asus Rampage III Formula and it didn't come close to what this Recon did for me and my Denon 3808. Bankruptcy, who knows, but they have been going on a license selling spree these past few years. They may see software development as the right direction since with all the powerful other hardware, we need less and less dedicated sound hardware.
 
Last edited:
Elios said:
i just checked the dirvers page looks like you may get that Duracell take a look

WBpRUl.jpg

http://asia.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=872&product=21116
http://support.creative.com/Product...SET=prodfaq:PRODFAQ_21116,VARSET=CategoryID:1

but i dont see the card in the store page yet...
Click to expand...

This would be interesting to me, if it produces similar sound quality to my X-Fi Titanium HD.

The gaming version reviewed today seems like a downgrade to me, and I am not really interested in it.

I really like my X-Fi Titanium HD, but it does have some really annoying issues,




1.) Difficulty in setting it up such that microphones work properly.

The X-Fi Titanium HD confuses the hell out of windows sound management.

Every now and then it simply forgets its microphone settings for some reason.

When it does this, getting my microphone to work, without constantly playing over the speakers makes me want to tear my hair out. Playing with the settings back and forth, I can get it to either not work at all, or to constantly play sounds through to my speakers even though "listen to this device" is unchecked...

Configuring the settings becomes even more confusing because it seemingly bounces back and forth between being "microphone 1" and "microphone 2", even though its always the same mic, connected to the same port.

After ~30 minutes of playing with the settings I eventually get it to work, seemingly randomly, as I never quite can figure out what it was I did to get it working properly. because of this, I have the same struggle all over again the next time it forgets its microphone settings.




2.) Clunky Software.

I don't feel I need to go into this, as I think everyone knows what I am talking about.




3.) Must unplug headphones from headphone amp jack in order to get RCA jacks for analog speakers to work.

Makes me constantly have to bend down underneath my desk to unplug and re-plug the headphones.

From the review I was pleased to hear that this next generation of SB card solve this problem.

I have since solved this problem myself though, by getting an external dedicated headphone amp.

Other than that, the card has been good, and I have enjoyed the excellent sound quality it provides.
 
Last edited:
Things Creative could do to make me buy this card:

1.) Create Titanium HD model, with excellent DAC suitable for music listening, without removing any of its gaming features, including that fancy microphone. I'd like to try it. (I both play games AND enjoy music),

2.) Include RCA plugs on the back like the X-Fi Titanium HD

3.) Ditch the LED's. It's a computer, not a fucking xmas tree.

4.) Include the expansion bay. (I have missed this with my X-Fi Titanium HD and was very disappointed they never released it as an accessory)

5.) make absolutely certain the microphone setup issue I have with my X-Fi Titanium issue is gone gone gone. If I have to go through that again, I may wind up killing someone.

If all these five points are satisfied, I'll probably buy one, as long as it's this side of $300.
 
Thank you very much for this review!

It is worth mentioning that the Recon3D doesn't have "direct" Bass / Treble controls.
Something that's missing from their line of products for the first time since Sound Blaster 16 or so..

Zarathustra[H];1038674631 said:
Things Creative could do to make me buy this card:

1.) Create Titanium HD model, with excellent DAC suitable for music listening, without removing any of its gaming features, including that fancy microphone. I'd like to try it. (I both play games AND enjoy music).
Click to expand...
+1
But I won't spend more than $200 for that.
 
Elios said:
i just checked the dirvers page looks like you may get that Duracell take a look

WBpRUl.jpg

http://asia.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=872&product=21116
http://support.creative.com/Product...SET=prodfaq:PRODFAQ_21116,VARSET=CategoryID:1

but i dont see the card in the store page yet...
Click to expand...

This model can only be found in the Asia Market I wanted to get this card because of the blue led light since my case has blue led lights every where. I emailed Creative sales rep and he told me that this card is for Asia Market only but the Recon3D card is the same card and the only difference is the led light. This is why you do not see this card in the USA stores.
 
rombat said:
This model can only be found in the Asia Market I wanted to get this card because of the blue led light since my case has blue led lights every where. I emailed Creative sales rep and he told me that this card is for Asia Market only but the Recon3D card is the same card and the only difference is the led light. This is why you do not see this card in the USA stores.
Click to expand...


You should be able to easily replace that LED should you want to.
 
True Kyle, might have to look into replacing the led light, just to chicken to mess up a new card. :D
 
Quagmire LXIX said:
Anybody that skips to the end and then commences to bitching, congrats, you entered into it with high bias.
Click to expand...

I was one of those people who skipped to the end because of my expectations of Creative. Time and time again they release terrible drivers than cause problems. The whole Vista driver fiasco cemented my disdain for this company and honestly I could not care less if they went under.


Shady and dishonest so they will never get another dime from me.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/04/daniel_k-who-fi/#disqus_thread

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/03/creative-fixing/
 
I do like how the new control panel looks very clean looking! Some owners are saying the control panel loads faster than the old interface which is a plus in my book!
 
Elios said:
i have a Gen 1 X-fi Xtreammusic card and its still kick ass 6 years later
Click to expand...

So do I but I just bought a mobo that doesnt have any PCI slots so this review was greatly timed for me. Though I am going to look at these alternatives people have mentioned in the comments.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top