SB X-Fi titanium pro 79.99 w/ rebate

Do this thing has ports on it so I can attach my front panel headphone and mic jack?
 
There are SB fans left?

Last discrete sound card I bought was a PCI X-Fi Platinum back in 2006 and a quick check of the specs doesn't seem any different from what I bought back then (aside from the interface). Have they actually made a new sound processor within the last 5 years or is this just a retread?
 
There are SB fans left?

Last discrete sound card I bought was a PCI X-Fi Platinum back in 2006 and a quick check of the specs doesn't seem any different from what I bought back then (aside from the interface). Have they actually made a new sound processor within the last 5 years or is this just a retread?

The PCI based x-fi's and the PCI-e x-fi's different very little. The pci-e one's chip has a native pci-e interface while the pci one is obviously PCI. Also the pci-e based ones can connect to front panel ports. My pci based one cannot.
 
There are SB fans left?

Last discrete sound card I bought was a PCI X-Fi Platinum back in 2006 and a quick check of the specs doesn't seem any different from what I bought back then (aside from the interface). Have they actually made a new sound processor within the last 5 years or is this just a retread?
the Titanium Pro has Dolby Digital Live encoding, which allows for digital audio output to a receiver for 5.1 output, if needed.

The Titanium Pro also has XRAM, which is apparently worthless, yet continues to be advertised. shrug
 
The PCI based x-fi's and the PCI-e x-fi's different very little. The pci-e one's chip has a native pci-e interface while the pci one is obviously PCI. Also the pci-e based ones can connect to front panel ports. My pci based one cannot.

Thanks for the info. I didn't think too much had changed but sometimes I miss the boat on a product cycle.
 
the Titanium Pro has Dolby Digital Live encoding, which allows for digital audio output to a receiver for 5.1 output, if needed.

The Titanium Pro also has XRAM, which is apparently worthless, yet continues to be advertised. shrug

I remember the original PCI X-Fi flagship card (Fatality?) had 64 MBs RAM too because I played BF2 at the time and it was one of the (very) few games to support it.

I know my PCI Platinum X-Fi card (with the front I/O panel) can output optical/digital audio too, but I'm not sure about the Dolby Digital Live encoding piece though.
 
If you bought one of the original X-Fi, it does not support DDL. So, only movies and such from which digital audio can be passed-through will be surround through a receiver.

This mainly affects gamers who want surround sound from a receiver. A non-DDL (or DTS Connect) card will only output stereo sound over optical/coax in games.
 
My X-Fi doesnt have the Xram, but in games that use the EAXHD5 or whatever it's called, this does improve the game speed and if you have a badass system hooked up like I used to then it does make a dif, but I wouldnt get this with anything less than a good 5.1 system

I love my Xfi for what it's worth, if I wasnt deploying I'd get this so I could space my cards out better
 
Not very familiar with sound cards.. Anyone know if this would be a nice upgrade from the on-board sound of a GA-EP45-UD3R mobo? Or would the cost not be justified and the money be well spent elsewhere, or on a different card, etc?
 
Not very familiar with sound cards.. Anyone know if this would be a nice upgrade from the on-board sound of a GA-EP45-UD3R mobo? Or would the cost not be justified and the money be well spent elsewhere, or on a different card, etc?

I think for the most part your money is best spent on better speakers / headphones first.

I downgraded from my previous X-Fi to onboard sound just so I could use the front panel audio ports on my PC. I didn't notice much of a difference in stereo or multichannel, a lot of game sound processing is done in software now anyway.
 
I actually disagree. I was hearing poor surround sound in games with the onboard from my X58-UD5.
Though a lot is done in software, I think there is some processing that isn't done properly on all onboard chipsets.

When I bought an X-Fi, surround in games sounded much better.
 
I actually disagree. I was hearing poor surround sound in games with the onboard from my X58-UD5.
Though a lot is done in software, I think there is some processing that isn't done properly on all onboard chipsets.

When I bought an X-Fi, surround in games sounded much better.

I have to agree. I only use the front ports on my sound and went from on board to X-Fi. It wasn't another world overall but it was a whole lot more sound I was missing I guess. Hearing people creep on you in Bad Company 2 got a whole lot easier.
 
YMMV but best buy have these on clearance for $75 (at least my store in ft myers does)

they have the new ones now
 
I actually disagree. I was hearing poor surround sound in games with the onboard from my X58-UD5.
Though a lot is done in software, I think there is some processing that isn't done properly on all onboard chipsets.

When I bought an X-Fi, surround in games sounded much better.

Its the DACs (Digital to Analog Converter). Onboard soundcards almost always have cruddy DACs which leads to muddy sound, poor separation, and poor soundstaging.
 
I think for the most part your money is best spent on better speakers / headphones first.

I downgraded from my previous X-Fi to onboard sound just so I could use the front panel audio ports on my PC. I didn't notice much of a difference in stereo or multichannel, a lot of game sound processing is done in software now anyway.

I bought a newer X-fi titanium pro which does support using the front ports and actually stopped using them because they introduce too much noise as they are unshielded. When I plugged into the card directly with good headphones the clarity was amazing. mw2 was much better.
 
I remember the original PCI X-Fi flagship card (Fatality?) had 64 MBs RAM too because I played BF2 at the time and it was one of the (very) few games to support it.

I know my PCI Platinum X-Fi card (with the front I/O panel) can output optical/digital audio too, but I'm not sure about the Dolby Digital Live encoding piece though.

I'm using my X-Fi Platinum with DDL encoding right now. Also encodes DTS.
 
DIE creative labs

you've screwed your customers (me being one of them) a multitude too many times.
 
the Titanium Pro has Dolby Digital Live encoding, which allows for digital audio output to a receiver for 5.1 output, if needed.

The Titanium Pro also has XRAM, which is apparently worthless, yet continues to be advertised. shrug

That's incorrect. It has Dolby Digital decoding in that it can decode on the soundcard and NOT have to pass the signal to a receiver for decoding. Any soundcard with digital output (coax, toslink) can properly relay a Dolby Digital signal to a receiver for decoding.
 
That's incorrect. It has Dolby Digital decoding in that it can decode on the soundcard and NOT have to pass the signal to a receiver for decoding. Any soundcard with digital output (coax, toslink) can properly relay a Dolby Digital signal to a receiver for decoding.

That's incorrect. See my previous post.

The SB live 5.1 could not
The SB XGamer 5.1 could not
The Audigy 2 could not

Yes for pre-recorded DVD content they'd output 5.1. For games that were supposed to be 5.1 - connected through optical, or digital coax - the above three cards were failures. I bought each of them with that sole intent. They were all advertised as such.

My last model the X-Fi came with a system I bought, and it crackles with drivers in windows 7 ---- sounds great when it works, but for the most part I hate creative labs.
 
That's incorrect. It has Dolby Digital decoding in that it can decode on the soundcard and NOT have to pass the signal to a receiver for decoding. Any soundcard with digital output (coax, toslink) can properly relay a Dolby Digital signal to a receiver for decoding.
Check your facts
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 

The ASUS card uses a lot more CPU resources then the X-fi cards do.

I'm not sure why some people have issues with SB cards.... I've only had SB cards save for two in the last 16 years. I only had the snap/crackle/pop issue once.. and it was because my card was in a PCI slot that was sharing an IRQ with a whole bunch of other stuff.

Drivers as of now are fine.. and have been for quite some time.

I was forced to go from a PCI X-fi to a PCI-e X-fi when I swapped motherboards.... It works great.

Of the two non-SB cards I had (actually still have them both), one was an Opti 930 based card with 4MB hardware wavetable(best card for SB-PRO emulation I ever came across) and another was a Philips card.... it worked fine for a while, but then it started having compatibility issues with newer stuff and Philips never released a better driver for it.
 
The ASUS card uses a lot more CPU resources then the X-fi cards do.
My ASUS card is using a whole 0% of my CPU right now. Wow, that's a lot of CPU resources!

And yes, I'm actually playing audio right now.
 
If youre using windows 7 arent soundcards a waste since any sound processing is done via software? Also, none of the newer games or future games support EAX, its dead why use a piece of hardware back from 2005?
 
If youre using windows 7 arent soundcards a waste since any sound processing is done via software? Also, none of the newer games or future games support EAX, its dead why use a piece of hardware back from 2005?
1) Newer games use OpenAL, which is still hardware-accelerated in Windows Vista and 7.

2) There are other benefits to having a dedicated sound quality, such as far superior sound quality and volume compared to onboard.
 
My ASUS card is using a whole 0% of my CPU right now. Wow, that's a lot of CPU resources!

And yes, I'm actually playing audio right now.

The ASUS card does positional audio and EAX through software.

The X-fi cards do it through hardware.

In other words.... it makes a difference in games.

Just playing music will not make the card use any CPU resources unless you have some program that is modifying it on the fly.
 
My ASUS card is using a whole 0% of my CPU right now. Wow, that's a lot of CPU resources!

And yes, I'm actually playing audio right now.

I'm glad you're enjoying your winmodem-class sound card. Now can you stop trolling the thread?

Hot deal by the way on real sound hardware.
 
The ASUS card does positional audio and EAX through software.

The X-fi cards do it through hardware.

In other words.... it makes a difference in games.

Just playing music will not make the card use any CPU resources unless you have some program that is modifying it on the fly.
And in games the CPU usage is still negligible. Perhaps if you're playing on an A64 X2 or Pentium D you might notice a performance hit, but any reasonably modern PC will not suffer at all.
I'm glad you're enjoying your winmodem-class sound card. Now can you stop trolling the thread?

Hot deal by the way on real sound hardware.
I'm sorry you feel so threatened by the fact that I posted an alternative deal for a superior sound card at a lower price.
 
I know this is old news since the X-Fi deal is dead, but what makes the ASUS card superior?
 
Better components and better software for the most part. The lower price doesn't hurt either.

That is really subjective. The X-Fi cards have a real processor that does all it's own work. The Asus offloads work to the CPU just like onboard but has better DACs. However I've had nothing but quality sound from my titanium pro.
 
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