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Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatality vs. Onboard...

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FusionXP

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 8, 2005
Messages
460
Right now I'm using the onboard sound on the ASUS P5Q Deluxe and a set of 4.1 Klipsch speakers. Will a dedicated sound card make a noticeable difference over the onboard sound?

Also how does the onboard sound in the P5Q Deluxe compare to an older SB Live sound card? The reason I'm asking is that one of my older rigs has the SB Live card. I've been using it for years and been pleased with it. If the quality is the same then it's pointless in buying the Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatality sound card even if it is a little better.
 
Onboard sound is way better than it used to be but you will always be better off with a dedicated plugin sound card, well aslong as its a semi decent one that is.

I never had a SB Live card so I cant say anything in regards to that, but I would say dont go for the Creative XFI fagtality version, go for the auzentech Xfi's same xfi chip but waaaay better in my opinion and with much better driver support.
 
Hmm, an X-Fi or even an Audigy would be noticeably better than on-board sound imo (depending on the circumstances and what you're listening to), but I'm not sure an old SB Live would be better... If you can even find Vista drivers for it, or are ya running XP? Eventually you'll want to move on to Vista or Windows 7...

If you're gaming mostly I'd just go for the cheapest PCI-E X-Fi for like $90 (the X-Fi Titanium vanilla, not the Fatal1ty or w/e version). Newegg occasionally discounts it by $10, other places sell it a touch cheaper too.
 
I was wondering the same thing as FusionXP. What exactly are the benefits of using a dedicated sound card vs. using the onboard sound on a decent motherboard (e.g. my Gigabyte X58 UD3R board)? Thanks.
 
I'm using Vista on a P5Q Deluxe rig and the SB Live card is installed on an older XP system.

I don't mind the sound on the onboard right now but would like to know if a sound card would be a noticeable difference in music listening and gaming.
 
Yes a newer card would be much better for gaming than onboard as you will get the latest EAX for your games, which most onboards either dont support or only support upto eax 2, its now 4 and also it will offload sound from the cpu thus freeing up resources, in XP it will, in vista it wont due to the way vista handles sound, so you will hear a major difference in gaming mainly due to EAX when playing games that support eax, as for just listening to music, all depends on how good your onboard sound is, a dedicated card will still sound better but you may not notice it that much, all depends on how much of an audiophile you are and how decent your onboard sound chip is, but for games it will be much more noticeable.
 
If you really care about your sound you should stick with onboard (if you have decent quality mobo sound) or get auzenteck x-fi instead. Creative cards are reknown for cheaping out on components. A creative card is better on paper and has more processing it can do than onboard, but it's a bit of a tossup whether you get a good one or one that sounds like trash/is excessively harsh.
 
General rule of thumb: If your onboard sound doesn't sound bad to you, you probably won't notice much of a difference if you upgrade to a dedicated card.

I honestly don't see any point in discrete cards, myself. As a musician, I'm pretty picky about how things are supposed to sound. However, my onboard sound is more than good enough, and I'm more limited by my speakers than by my sound controller.
 
I'm still shocked this question is still asked. Just for shits and gigles one time I reverted from my X-Fi to onboard and could not believe how bad the onboard sound was. On every motherboard I've had I will test the onboard sound for curiousity's sake, and every time I am reminded how horrible onboard sound is.

IMO, any discreet card is far better than onboard.
 
sr4rk, if that's the case it just means you buy crappy motherboards. Most realtek onboard sound is good quality (especially is it's not some cheapo $30/40 mobo) and creative is very hit or miss. It may sound very good, but more likely (in my experience) creative cards sound hollow and harsh and much less accurate. Of 5 creative cards I've had, The Audigy 2 ZS Gamer was the only one that really sounded good. Otherwise, my realtek chipsets have pretty universally sounded better from a SQ standpoint. Auzentek are supposed to be much better since they don't cheap out on components so it's less of a crapshoot on getting a good card verse getting total junk.
 
seemlessthunder said:
sr4rk, if that's the case it just means you buy crappy motherboards. Most realtek onboard sound is good quality (especially is it's not some cheapo $30/40 mobo) and creative is very hit or miss. It may sound very good, but more likely (in my experience) creative cards sound hollow and harsh and much less accurate. Of 5 creative cards I've had, The Audigy 2 ZS Gamer was the only one that really sounded good. Otherwise, my realtek chipsets have pretty universally sounded better from a SQ standpoint. Auzentek are supposed to be much better since they don't cheap out on components so it's less of a crapshoot on getting a good card verse getting total junk.
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Thanks for the laugh, it's been pretty boring at work today.
 
The onboard sound is pretty good,but in no way touches the sound quailty of a good sound card.The onboard will slow down fps in games and that will vary widley between games.Go to your local computer store and let them let you hear the difference between the two.Just act like you want to buy a highend sound card but you want to hear the difference between the two.They will break there necks trying to help you,and once you hear the difference.Tell them you did not notice anything different then run and buy one off newegg for alot less from them scrubs at the computer store.
 
Key is "good sound card". That's a contradiction in terms if you're referring to that and creative in my experience. Get an Auzentek or Xonar if you want real improvement over onboard. The only thing creative gets you is better response in games, but overall SQ is still pretty crap.
 
Creative cards have more features but as far as sound quality, don;t expect better than on-board. Get an Auzentech X-Fi card and have the best of both worlds, all of creative's game support + awesome awesome awesome sound quality.
 
seemlessthunder said:
Key is "good sound card". That's a contradiction in terms if you're referring to that and creative in my experience. Get an Auzentek or Xonar if you want real improvement over onboard. The only thing creative gets you is better response in games, but overall SQ is still pretty crap.
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I have an X-Fi Elite Pro I am willing to bet you cannot discriminate from Auzentech or Asus card in music playback...and not discriminate from any Auzentech in gaming...but cleary dicriminate from the Asus in gaming...
 
You're dealing with an awful amount of hype when it comes to Creative products. There are much better products out there. Honestly, I would go with an M-Audio 2496 if you want top-notch quality for a PC setup or an HT OMEGA card if you're going to be doing 7.1.
 
kompulsive said:
You're dealing with an awful amount of hype when it comes to Creative products. There are much better products out there. Honestly, I would go with an M-Audio 2496 if you want top-notch quality for a PC setup or an HT OMEGA card if you're going to be doing 7.1.
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Less than stellar choices for a gamer though.
 
extide said:
Creative cards have more features but as far as sound quality, don;t expect better than on-board. Get an Auzentech X-Fi card and have the best of both worlds, all of creative's game support + awesome awesome awesome sound quality.
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Creative is infamous for forcing consumers to upgrade hardware by blocking driver support for older hardware---When there's evidence said hardware can very likely handle those features in newer drivers.

They also charged for driver upgrades at one point, unsure if that's still going on or not.

Plenty of people are still stinging from when they bought Aureal out, then promptly ran it into the ground.

You're paying for a brandname, that is generally mediocre at best when it comes to supporting products bought by an end-user. Perhaps I never got into EAX that seriously, but with all the points I've listed, I couldn't find any compelling reason to buy anything from Creative past the SB Live! that's been collecting dust for a few years now.
 
Atech said:
I have an X-Fi Elite Pro I am willing to bet you cannot discriminate from Auzentech or Asus card in music playback...and not discriminate from any Auzentech in gaming...but cleary dicriminate from the Asus in gaming...
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On the analog outs? I will bet you I can, especially on a half decent pair of headphones, it would be blatantly obvious. (If you ARENT using the analog out's then the quality of your out-board DAC and it's OPAMPS and then it's amp if you are using one will ultimately dictate the final sound quality.) If you don;t care about the analog outs then don;t bother with an Auzentech or HT OMEGA card (Although the Auzentech X-Fi is VERY comparable pricewise with the Creative X-Fi Fatality, and it is equal or better in everything).
 
seemlessthunder said:
If you really care about your sound you should stick with onboard (if you have decent quality mobo sound) or get auzenteck x-fi instead. Creative cards are reknown for cheaping out on components. A creative card is better on paper and has more processing it can do than onboard, but it's a bit of a tossup whether you get a good one or one that sounds like trash/is excessively harsh.
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The *cheaping out* is primarily an issue in two cases:

1. Your operating system is Linux/Windows XP/older version of Windows

AND

2. You have a Creative sound card that LACKS an X-Fi DSP.

The X-Fi XtremeAudio lacks any sort of DSP at all (it replies on the CPU for all the audio processing); worse, it uses the same other components as the Audigy SE. Under NO circumstances buy either card, even for an enemy.

The X-Fi DSP-based cards actually provide a solid upgrade path (especially if you listen to music or watch video on your PC) from onboard sound or older Creative sound cards (even in Linux; there are open-source 32/64-bit X-Fi drivers for Linux downloadable from Creative, and *yes*, they work, as I use them myself with Ubuntu 9.04 64-bit). You will hear the complaint that Windows Vista (and Windows 7) no longer support audio acceleration due to changes in the audio stack. In the case of Windows Vista, there are two workarounds (one for each side of the audio issue):

1. The Creative Audio Console *still* supports EAX Environmental Audio (which Vista can use) and includes several Environments; however, you have to switch the Audio Console to be in Entertainment Mode (the default is in Game Mode); a more primitive version of the Console is included with the beta drivers for Windows 7.

2. Creative ALchemy is a software workaround for games installed in Windows Vista that only support EAX (which does not work with the changed audio stack in Vista/7) as opposed to OpenAL (which works just fine); it is *included* with the X-Fi (on the driver CD). Note that this only applies to games that do NOT support OpenAL; games that support OpenAL are unaffected by the change.
 
Satyrist said:
Creative is infamous for forcing consumers to upgrade hardware by blocking driver support for older hardware---When there's evidence said hardware can very likely handle those features in newer drivers.

They also charged for driver upgrades at one point, unsure if that's still going on or not.

Plenty of people are still stinging from when they bought Aureal out, then promptly ran it into the ground.

You're paying for a brandname, that is generally mediocre at best when it comes to supporting products bought by an end-user. Perhaps I never got into EAX that seriously, but with all the points I've listed, I couldn't find any compelling reason to buy anything from Creative past the SB Live! that's been collecting dust for a few years now.
Click to expand...

The *blocking support for older hardware* issue is not just a Creative issue; I don't know of ANY company that supports ALL their older hardware indefinitely - not even HP, home of the infamous Original LaserJet; keep it properly fed with printer and toner and it will outlast *you*. However, try getting support if something breaks hardware-wise; there are some parts that you can't even GET for the original LaserJet any more.

The Aureal issue was bad prior to Creative buying them out; I'd owned TWO different Aureal-based sound cards (both sold by Diamond Multimedia); in both cases, they were replaced by Creative sound cards. (And that was BEFORE Creative got the pieces left of Aureal when they went bankrupt.)

EAX (other than Environmental Audio) has never been a big issue to me. However, because I do listen to a rather large number of MP3s, Enviromental Audio is a rather large issue. I, like you, used to own the Sound Blaster Live! (in my case, the Live! 5.1, which I bought specifically for my Windows 2000 Profesional box I was building in that year). I didn't replace it for three years (and it wasn't even for lack of support when I did); however, it DID get replaced (with a Sound Blaster Audigy, which is still used as a spare card/test card).

The Audigy itself hung on for two years (and got replaced by an Audigy 2, which lasted barely a year; that was replaced, due to my frying the sound card, with an Audigy 2 ZS Gamer, which Mom has today). The very reason Mom HAS that sound card was because I bought a new (in fact, it had just been introduced that month) X-Fi XtremeGamer in the low-profile PCI trim (SB-0073) that it is sold in today. That sound card is, in fact, the only thing other than my drives that survived the change of motherboard intact. I was personally in no rush MYSELF to upgrade (I saw it more as a crossgrade, actually; I have post on it further down in the Computer Audio forum on my experiences). NONE of my sound card upgrades/changes were game-driven (or even gaming-driven) going back SINCE I bought the MonsterSound MX-300 (the second of two Aureal-based sound cards).
However, because I got so badly burned when I had tried to move away from Creative, I came back, and am not in any hurry, because Creative sound cards have done what I've needed them to do, when I've needed them to do it.

Not saying they will be that way for everybody; however, for me, Creative has been in sound cards what HP has been in printers. (I have an HP DeskJet 940c that still soldiers on; it's on it's fifth *different* flavor of Windows alone and in its fifth year of service; not bad for what was a sub-$100 printer when new.)
 
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