Creative Unveils Sound Blaster with RGB Lighting

Must have had a dozen or so Creative cards over the years, the last being a X-Fi Fatality around 2005. However, never had a issue with the drivers. I did used to have an issue with the size of the driver packages until I looked deeper into the payload and found that 300MB+ of the 400MB were pointless test files/samples that could be deleted.

Currently using onboard on my Asus X99 through a cheap Fiio Taishan optical DAC.
 
There's a creative chance in hell that I would purchase another one of their cards given how swarmy they were in the past. (ie: aureal, and suing people who fixed their broken drivers on older cards)
 
And it uses...a white plastic Molex for additional RGB power. How classy in 2017!?
Fuck that. I just got rid of all the Molex in my PC.
Are Creative's drivers still terrible? They certainly were back in the day, which is what has prevented me from buying any of their soundcards since about 2004. I had an Audigy 2 ZS Platinum (with the 5.25" bay breakout box) and it was fine when the drivers played ball. The only problem was that they were flaky as hell. Great hardware, terrible software.
The drivers have been fine for awhile now. It's another bad driver story that refuses to die, like AMD, because someone had a bad experience 10-15 years ago and refuses to try any newer hardware.
 
Onboard sound is great in most cases, nothing like the old days and pretty much no driver issues. Add on to that, most mobos are coming with upgraded sound to start with, and if you are going to fork $150 for a sound card, you might as well go up only $50 for a better mobo WITH a build in sound card. I was surprised when my new ASUS mobo detected my high ohm (250ohm) headphones and adjusted power to match, sound great even without my amp. And if you want the best sound, you are not going to get it from a sound card, but a DAC/AMP. Add-in sound cards are a thing of the past.

Onboard, for most people, will out shine what 99% of people are using for speaker/headphones.
I have a mb with "special hyped" on board sound. It's so good that I can hear my mouse move.
I guess that makes me a one percenter.
El Chingón started this thread with his build, it's packed full of sound goodness.
https://hardforum.com/threads/h-ardocp-spec-bookshelf-speaker-setup.1927301/

As for my mouse bleed, i was able to fix it with an Asus Xonar DG 5.1, next step would have been an external DAC.
 
I have a mb with "special hyped" on board sound. It's so good that I can hear my mouse move.
I guess that makes me a one percenter.
El Chingón started this thread with his build, it's packed full of sound goodness.
https://hardforum.com/threads/h-ardocp-spec-bookshelf-speaker-setup.1927301/

As for my mouse bleed, i was able to fix it with an Asus Xonar DG 5.1, next step would have been an external DAC.
Most on board audio suffers from not enough shielding and you hear the clicks and pops from normal computer operations through your headphones/speakers.
A extra soundcard usually is far enough away that you won't get any bleed. A DAC is even better because it's all digital (not subject to noise) and converted outside the PC.
 
While onboard audio is much better these days, it's still not as good as a discrete sound card. Of course you need a great set of cans to hear the difference but it's going to be subjective.

Creative is marketing this sound card for the epeen / deep pockets crowd. It's not really meant for gamers.

As a bit of an audiophile myself, I still wonder why people buy sound cards.

An external DAC seems to be the only way I've been able to get rid of noise/interference. With an internal sound card, I could hear the faintest static/buzzing when the monitor would display mostly white (or a moving image with mostly white color) and with even as little movement as the cursor moving. It was very faint but it bugged me so much.

My current motherboard has a 'special EMI shielded hi-fi audio processor' that still produces a shit-ton of noise with things like mouse movement.
 
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As a bit of an audiophile myself, I still wonder why people buy sound cards.

An external DAC seems to be the only way I've been able to get rid of noise/interference. With an internal sound card, I could hear the faintest static/buzzing when the monitor would display mostly white (or a moving image with mostly white color) and with even as little movement as the cursor moving. It was very faint but it bugged me so much.

My current motherboard has a 'special EMI shielded hi-fi audio processor' that still produces a shit-ton of noise with things like mouse movement.
I've never had this issue. Most sound cards today come with EFI shielding. Hell, my Zx is sandwiched right against my video card and AIO hoses and I don't hear any of that.

EDIT: Quoted the wrong person.
 
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I've never had this issue. Most sound cards today come with EFI shielding. Hell, my Zx is sandwiched right against my video card and AIO hoses and I don't hear any of that.
You're repeating what i said. On motherboard solutions are generally too close and get bleed effects from normal computer emissions. There are some exceptions, but like the person i quoted said, even high end on motherboard solutions aren't immune to noise.
Add on cards separate the distance by a fair margin so you don't get those effects. It typically depends on where they're placed and if there's appropriate shielding.
For the record, i'm using a xonar xense setup. Having a high end sound card with a paired headset was a one time expense that still is working out for me all these years.
If something ever happens to that setup, i'm switching over to a DAC.
 
You're repeating what i said. On motherboard solutions are generally too close and get bleed effects from normal computer emissions. There are some exceptions, but like the person i quoted said, even high end on motherboard solutions aren't immune to noise.
Add on cards separate the distance by a fair margin so you don't get those effects. It typically depends on where they're placed and if there's appropriate shielding.
For the record, i'm using a xonar xense setup. Having a high end sound card with a paired headset was a one time expense that still is working out for me all these years.
If something ever happens to that setup, i'm switching over to a DAC.
I think I quoted the wrong person...

Indeed, I did. Fixed.
 
RGB lighting fad aside, if the lights can be set up to change based on the sound as some sound analyzer visualiser, it's not that bad of an idea.
TL,DR I didn't bother to watch the video to see if that's actually a feature.
 
As a bit of an audiophile myself, I still wonder why people buy sound cards.

An external DAC seems to be the only way I've been able to get rid of noise/interference. With an internal sound card, I could hear the faintest static/buzzing when the monitor would display mostly white (or a moving image with mostly white color) and with even as little movement as the cursor moving. It was very faint but it bugged me so much.

My current motherboard has a 'special EMI shielded hi-fi audio processor' that still produces a shit-ton of noise with things like mouse movement.
I had a SB Z with the EMI shield and it would pick up coil whine noise from my now retired GTX 970. Switched to on-board and the noise went away. I ended up getting the SB 5.1 Omni Surround which is an external USB DAC. I've stuck with Creative because they have the best 5.1 surround (SBX) solution IMO.
 
honest question, is there really a large number of people that actually like the RGB/LED-ifying of parts/peripherals?

some of the first things I did when I put together my recent system:
1) turn off mobo RGB/LEDs
2) turn off LEDs on GTX 1070
3) turn off LEDs on mouse
 
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Here is an idea;.
How about a sound card with a built in DMX controller for DMX devices.
You could have scripts in games that give you different color washes for different scenes in games.
OR, if you are just listening to music, instant rave party.
 
I had a SB Z with the EMI shield and it would pick up coil whine noise from my now retired GTX 970. Switched to on-board and the noise went away. I ended up getting the SB 5.1 Omni Surround which is an external USB DAC. I've stuck with Creative because they have the best 5.1 surround (SBX) solution IMO.
Funny the opposite is normally the case.
Must people go with embedded audio in the MB, which can be extremely noisy regardless of the specs of the chipset.
I found this out when I wanted to do some pro audio recording, the embedded audio was to noisy.
I switched to a ASUS Xonar and the difference was night and day.
I ended up going to a external mixer console and captured via USB2, that proved the be the best method.
 
So the takeaway from this thread is RGB = dumb,
and Never Ever base your mb purchase on its integrated sound solution, no matter how amazing the marketing. Got it.
 
So the takeaway from this thread is RGB = dumb,
and Never Ever base your mb purchase on its integrated sound solution, no matter how amazing the marketing. Got it.
RGB is fine if kept to a minimum. Integrated audio is hit or miss. Pair it with Creative's X-Fi MB3 software and it can be good. I'd rather spend a bit more for a discrete audio solution.
 
Are Creative's drivers still terrible? They certainly were back in the day, which is what has prevented me from buying any of their soundcards since about 2004. I had an Audigy 2 ZS Platinum (with the 5.25" bay breakout box) and it was fine when the drivers played ball. The only problem was that they were flaky as hell. Great hardware, terrible software.
I will say this: back around 2008, a user Daniel_K not only reverse engineered and fixed bugs with Creatives existing drivers, he also enabled extra functionality for Vista that was only available on Vista at the time that Creative didn't want to bother putting in. Creative threatened to sue him to protect their IP, that part is straightforward enough so far. What really left an impression on me was the Vice President of Creative at the time came out and made a statement something like "We have the right to withhold features and updates if we should so choose." Those weren't his exact words (I need to find the quote, I swear), but the message behind it was obvious: Driver instability / features not working on a newer OS was NOT a case of them being incompetent or lazy, it was a planned strategy to force you to buy a newer card because the old one will malfunction over time by design. That alone makes me never want to buy from Creative again.

EDIT:
Found it.
He flat out states by enabling features that worked on soundcard in XP to ALSO work on Vista, that's theft, then goes on to say that only they have the right to decide what works and what doesn't on their cards.
 
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I will say this: back around 2008, a user Daniel_K not only reverse engineered and fixed bugs with Creatives existing drivers, he also enabled extra functionality for Vista that was only available on Vista at the time that Creative didn't want to bother putting in. Creative threatened to sue him to protect their IP, that part is straightforward enough so far. What really left an impression on me was the Vice President of Creative at the time came out and made a statement something like "We have the right to withhold features and updates if we should so choose." Those weren't his exact words (I need to find the quote, I swear), but the message behind it was obvious: Driver instability / features not working on a newer OS was NOT a case of them being incompetent or lazy, it was a planned strategy to force you to buy a newer card because the old one will malfunction over time by design. That alone makes me never want to buy from Creative again.

EDIT:
Found it.
He flat out states by enabling features that worked on soundcard in XP to ALSO work on Vista, that's theft, then goes on to say that only they have the right to decide what works and what doesn't on their cards.

He is also right in that it's their right on what they want to support or allow...And it is our right to not buy them, which is why I moved to DAC's a long time ago.
 
I will say this: back around 2008, a user Daniel_K not only reverse engineered and fixed bugs with Creatives existing drivers, he also enabled extra functionality for Vista that was only available on Vista at the time that Creative didn't want to bother putting in. Creative threatened to sue him to protect their IP, that part is straightforward enough so far. What really left an impression on me was the Vice President of Creative at the time came out and made a statement something like "We have the right to withhold features and updates if we should so choose." Those weren't his exact words (I need to find the quote, I swear), but the message behind it was obvious: Driver instability / features not working on a newer OS was NOT a case of them being incompetent or lazy, it was a planned strategy to force you to buy a newer card because the old one will malfunction over time by design. That alone makes me never want to buy from Creative again.

EDIT:
Found it.
He flat out states by enabling features that worked on soundcard in XP to ALSO work on Vista, that's theft, then goes on to say that only they have the right to decide what works and what doesn't on their cards.

You see the same thing done in the test equipment market. Sell one unit but different tiered packages that are just firmware unlocks for features that the device can do. Often it is a difference of thousands to tens of thousands for the different packages. In the case of some oscilloscopes it is even a plain text file that has a generic key that can be copied.

Sucks but is nothing new :/

I think the consumer market is still not ready to accept that type of sales model yet.
 
He is also right in that it's their right on what they want to support or allow...And it is our right to not buy them, which is why I moved to DAC's a long time ago.
Oh I know, I just found it impressive how consumer-hostile the policy was. They would have done better to keep their mouths shut, I always assumed it was incompetence on their part rather than actual sabotage.

You see the same thing done in the test equipment market. Sell one unit but different tiered packages that are just firmware unlocks for features that the device can do. Often it is a difference of thousands to tens of thousands for the different packages. In the case of some oscilloscopes it is even a plain text file that has a generic key that can be copied.

Sucks but is nothing new :/

I think the consumer market is still not ready to accept that type of sales model yet.
I get what you're saying, but it's a little different in a few ways:

1. At the time, I was still getting occasional blue screens on the hardware / software combo it was DESIGNED for. So not only were they not supporting future OS's, they were trying to block someone fixing their product for the past OS.
2. The features were already enabled on XP, just not on Vista. So that's a little like what you're describing, but I can't think of much of a precedent elsewhere in the hardware industry, where they intentionally try to cripple your functionality if you move to a newer OS.
3. It's pure waste. The system you're describing would actually be more progressive than what they were doing. If you had to pay them an extra $50 to enable the features on Vista for the same card, that's at least a halfway sane business model. Theirs was for you to chuck the old card in a landfill and buy new hardware to do the exact same thing you were already doing. Any system that unnecessarily incentivizes throwing after perfectly good hardware when new software comes along is shit.
 
Oh I know, I just found it impressive how consumer-hostile the policy was. They would have done better to keep their mouths shut, I always assumed it was incompetence on their part rather than actual sabotage.

I get what you're saying, but it's a little different in a few ways:

1. At the time, I was still getting occasional blue screens on the hardware / software combo it was DESIGNED for. So not only were they not supporting future OS's, they were trying to block someone fixing their product for the past OS.
2. The features were already enabled on XP, just not on Vista. So that's a little like what you're describing, but I can't think of much of a precedent elsewhere in the hardware industry, where they intentionally try to cripple your functionality if you move to a newer OS.
3. It's pure waste. The system you're describing would actually be more progressive than what they were doing. If you had to pay them an extra $50 to enable the features on Vista for the same card, that's at least a halfway sane business model. Theirs was for you to chuck the old card in a landfill and buy new hardware to do the exact same thing you were already doing. Any system that unnecessarily incentivizes throwing after perfectly good hardware when new software comes along is shit.

Fair points. I think I can see where they were trying to head that direction but tripped all over themselves in the process and reputations are like glass...
 
Are Creative's drivers still terrible? They certainly were back in the day, which is what has prevented me from buying any of their soundcards since about 2004. I had an Audigy 2 ZS Platinum (with the 5.25" bay breakout box) and it was fine when the drivers played ball. The only problem was that they were flaky as hell. Great hardware, terrible software.
Their driver issues were primarily caused by Microsoft when they stripped many of the core audio processing capabilities out of Windows literally weeks before the release of Vista, it took well into Windows 7 before they managed to get much of that functionality back and stable. Their cards now are really solid and can offer clean sound if you have a speaker setup that can actually use it. Regardless though their reputation took a massive blow from those last minute changes that will probably take another 5 years to overcome, that all being said I don't currently have any of their products but I have a few friends who do and I can certainly notice some audio differences and while I can say it is better I like my mITX form factor too much, though if somebody did release a mITX MB with a good creative audio solution built in I would likely buy it.
 
I don't really care about RGB, I just like having the name or model lit up on the card. Having RGB just makes it easier to match the lighting of your system.
My SB ZX has a Red LED on it and doesn't match the inside of my case. :(

IMG_1057.JPG
 
I used Creative sound cards in every build until I installed Vista. They crippled their drivers, stating that the hardware was not compatible with the new OS. I found modified drivers that made the hardware work just fine (after I bought a new card from them and it still did not work right). I found that not only the modified drivers made both cards run fine, they threatened the modder with legal action. Then they released Alchemy for a fee that did the same thing. I started to use on board audio after that. I have not had a single problem with any of the on board chips yet. They work well for me and are extremely easy to use.
Microsoft pulled kernel access for the audio engine something stupid like 2 weeks before Vista went Gold, citing that 90% of BSOD's in XP were caused by audio problems. This had something to do with nVidia and VIA's audio mostly either way they pulled it and Creative was left holding the bag with an entire product line that couldn't work in Vista onward. It was Windows 7 before they got their drivers working properly again, but at this point from what little experience I have had with Creatives products they have been solid, stable, and did sound better than built in.
 
The Sound BlasterX series is for pro-gaming products. They make sound cards, headphones, mouse pads, etc in that series for gamers. They have other products for non-gamers.

The Sound Blaster ZxR is an internal soundcard and it's $100 more than this card will be. That's more for those with deeper pockets. Even higher still is the X7. It's double the price of the RGB card and the X7 Limited is $100 above the X7. They're external usb DACs.

I am currently using the Sound Blaster X7 Limited Edition, paired up with my Beyerdynamic Amiron Home headphones. The X7/X7 LE is quite nice for what it is (I suggest getting it when it is on sale; IMO the MSRP for it is higher than it should be). I was originally planning on getting the O2, or one of the various Schiit models, but went for the X7 LE due to the multiple functions, better impedance support (in the chance that I will get higher impedance headphones in the future), and tailored software for gaming.

For straight up gaming, though, the Sennheiser GSX 1000/1200 are better than Creative's offerings.
 
Has any product made the leap to where the RGB light setup is consuming more power than the original function of the component?
 
RGB all the things indeed.
Still don't own a component with RGB option, hopefully will keep it that way!
Definitely not a fan of all this cosmetic crap; on cases and RGB and whatnot.

I still use an Omega HT Striker 7.1 and only issue I've ever had was my GPU has started sagging a bit, causing feedback.
Stuffed a cable between the two, tech support at it's finest. :D

Been happy with the sound, typically hear things most don't and that was a mid-tier card when I purchased it five or six years ago, so dang!

I will say, there are a lot of audio options out there these days.
I won't even know where to begin when I start piecing together the new build, but I see a lot of people using DACs, so that may be the path forward.
 
Microsoft pulled kernel access for the audio engine something stupid like 2 weeks before Vista went Gold, citing that 90% of BSOD's in XP were caused by audio problems. This had something to do with nVidia and VIA's audio mostly either way they pulled it and Creative was left holding the bag with an entire product line that couldn't work in Vista onward. It was Windows 7 before they got their drivers working properly again, but at this point from what little experience I have had with Creatives products they have been solid, stable, and did sound better than built in.
Yeah I was going to say, removal of access was a RESPONSE to BSOD's on XP from soundcards. I hadn't heard this was mostly due to VIA and Nvidia, I remember enough BSOD's on an Audigy back then. I wouldn't be surprised if Creative was just as guilty.
 
Their driver issues were primarily caused by Microsoft when they stripped many of the core audio processing capabilities out of Windows literally weeks before the release of Vista, it took well into Windows 7 before they managed to get much of that functionality back and stable. Their cards now are really solid and can offer clean sound if you have a speaker setup that can actually use it. Regardless though their reputation took a massive blow from those last minute changes that will probably take another 5 years to overcome, that all being said I don't currently have any of their products but I have a few friends who do and I can certainly notice some audio differences and while I can say it is better I like my mITX form factor too much, though if somebody did release a mITX MB with a good creative audio solution built in I would likely buy it.
Erm... this isn't true...
Their driver issues stem from the fact that they stop producing drivers a year or two at most after a product is out. If you get a new os (happened to me on windows 7, I'm sure it happened to folks who switched to windows 10), their creative drivers and sound suites stop working and there's no fixes from them except to buy a new product of theirs.
It's not even that they don't make drivers/new software to support the OS upgrades. There's at least one place that i know of (http://www.hardwareheaven.com/community/forums/pax-drivers.174/) that repackages new drivers specifically to work with older equipment with some decent success.
 
Erm... this isn't true...
Their driver issues stem from the fact that they stop producing drivers a year or two at most after a product is out. If you get a new os (happened to me on windows 7, I'm sure it happened to folks who switched to windows 10), their creative drivers and sound suites stop working and there's no fixes from them except to buy a new product of theirs.
It's not even that they don't make drivers/new software to support the OS upgrades. There's at least one place that i know of (http://www.hardwareheaven.com/community/forums/pax-drivers.174/) that repackages new drivers specifically to work with older equipment with some decent success.

Considering a modder with basic assembly knowledge fixed a number of bugs, added support and opened up all sorts of features that those cards had in XP (but not in vista), in his own spare time and released them for free. I will agree that they are without a doubt to blame for the huge mess of problems and they had no intentions on fixing them.
 
What I find funny is this... "People still use sound cards? I use a DAC".... So you are saying "people still use sound cards? I use a SOUND CARD"
DACs ARE sound cards. And unless they are completely isolated from the computer (optical inputs and external power supply), have 95% of the drawbacks of a discrete internal soundcard.
 
What I find funny is this... "People still use sound cards? I use a DAC".... So you are saying "people still use sound cards? I use a SOUND CARD"
DACs ARE sound cards. And unless they are completely isolated from the computer (optical inputs and external power supply), have 95% of the drawbacks of a discrete internal soundcard.
True enough, though in my experience, it's been like this:

Motherboard audio: can hear the shortcomings
Internal soundcard: Sound great, has lot of neat extras, but oh my god the drivers make me want to hang myself
DAC: Sound great, no extras, stable, no longer need to kill myself.
 
heres a vid. I agree with him, skip the rgb and drop the price a bit. and yeah, wtf is with the white connector?! at least hide it somewhere then.



Ironically, I couldn't sit through this video because of the annoying background audio. Something in the music is clipping and has a weird drippy snare/bass sound built into the music.

Maybe I just need a better sound card to make that YT video not sound like crap. :p
 
Ironically, I couldn't sit through this video because of the annoying background audio. Something in the music is clipping and has a weird drippy snare/bass sound built into the music.

Maybe I just need a better sound card to make that YT video not sound like crap. :p
did you comment on his vid cause I cant do anything about it.
 
People need to be careful screwing these days. They might end up with RGB children if not...
 
Are Creative's drivers still terrible? They certainly were back in the day, which is what has prevented me from buying any of their soundcards since about 2004. I had an Audigy 2 ZS Platinum (with the 5.25" bay breakout box) and it was fine when the drivers played ball. The only problem was that they were flaky as hell. Great hardware, terrible software.

Still use this is my stream/encode PC. The extra inputs have been clutch on many occasions. The problem is that 1 of 4 times I turn it on, it doesn't agree that a sound device is present, which a reboot fixes (75% of the time). Other than that, its still great.
 
I've had Creative sounds card up until my GA-Z170X-Gaming 7, which has Creative DSP build in. They just sound better. I've tried them all too. My first IBM PC was an AMD 386/40 mhz. Update every year or two for the last 25-30 years.
 
I am currently using the Sound Blaster X7 Limited Edition, paired up with my Beyerdynamic Amiron Home headphones. The X7/X7 LE is quite nice for what it is (I suggest getting it when it is on sale; IMO the MSRP for it is higher than it should be). I was originally planning on getting the O2, or one of the various Schiit models, but went for the X7 LE due to the multiple functions, better impedance support (in the chance that I will get higher impedance headphones in the future), and tailored software for gaming.

For straight up gaming, though, the Sennheiser GSX 1000/1200 are better than Creative's offerings.

I have the X7 Limited myself. Have some Klipsch R-15M speakers attached with a powered woofer. I also use Audio Technica A700 headphones. I just picked it up for better sound than onboard and for all it's other features. Ya, it's definitely way overpriced at the $500, but they will put the thing on sale so many times. I bought mine for $350 on Dec 2015.

I'm not any kind of audiophile, so I really have no idea what ppl are talking about when they review these kind of things. I just know, it sounds good and will go with whatever has the most features/connectivity options, so I won't have to buy something else in the future. Due to it being lacking in some way. I've just learned to go with the best I can afford (according to reviews), after learning my lesson blowing money on crappy headphones.

For gaming headsets, I have an old Creative Tactic Omega wireless headset. It works on my PC, PS3, 360, PS4, and Xbox One. Why I went with it. I'm all for as many connectivity options as possible. Sound quality comes in third, after wirelss and connectivity.
 
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