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Sound Blaster ZX available

T

txfeinbergs

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 6, 2004
Messages
308
Guys, I got my hands on one of the Sound Blaster ZX's and have to say it is a lot better than the failed attempt of a Recon 3D card (which I made the mistake of buying). The SW is also considerably better than the ASUS Xonar Phoebus which I also have (and will be selling on ebay shortly). The breakout Audio Control Module is very solid and nicely designed.

I was able to get mine off of Amazon. They only had about 7 available on Tuesday, and are now sold out again.
 
Not even if the hardware was free would I put a sound blaster product in my pc. If it works for you and you are comfortable making that sacrifice great. Good to hear they have made a "good" product again but it does not help the bad taste i have gotten from their other products/drivers over the years.
Strictly my opinion.
 
txfeinbergs said:
Guys, I got my hands on one of the Sound Blaster ZX's and have to say it is a lot better than the failed attempt of a Recon 3D card (which I made the mistake of buying). The SW is also considerably better than the ASUS Xonar Phoebus which I also have (and will be selling on ebay shortly). The breakout Audio Control Module is very solid and nicely designed.

I was able to get mine off of Amazon. They only had about 7 available on Tuesday, and are now sold out again.
Click to expand...

yeah the Z series cards are awesome and the drivers work perfectly even on windows 8.

Snufykat said:
Not even if the hardware was free would I put a sound blaster product in my pc. If it works for you and you are comfortable making that sacrifice great. Good to hear they have made a "good" product again but it does not help the bad taste i have gotten from their other products/drivers over the years.
Strictly my opinion.
Click to expand...

that's a bit narrow minded isn't it? I mean creative had a bad year or two around the time of the release of Vista, but since then they have been ok, no better or no worse than Asus. And if drivers are your biggest problem, then, there are always third party drivers. Both Asus and Creative have them.

Sorry, not defending Creative, just think the attitude of hating a company and saying you would never use any of their products again is a bit much. If creative released an awesome sound card, the best one ever, for a great price you wouldnt buy it?

Getting back to the sound card, the Z is a really amazing sound card. There is no bloatware, just a streamlined installation with just the essentials. Everything just works.
 
Actually, it was because of the poor SW quality of the ASUS Xonar Phoebus card that I am switching back to Creative after swearing them off when they released the Recon crap (my X-Fi Elite pro had just died after 7 years of faithful service, and that was an excellent card). The HW of the ASUS Xonar Phoebus is top notch, but they must have a bunch of idiots programming the SW and their driver support is pretty much non-existent. Even their forum support has just one guy who occasionally responds.
 
Snufykat said:
Not even if the hardware was free would I put a sound blaster product in my pc. If it works for you and you are comfortable making that sacrifice great. Good to hear they have made a "good" product again but it does not help the bad taste i have gotten from their other products/drivers over the years.
Strictly my opinion.
Click to expand...

Asus has just as many driver problems as Creative (if not more), and Auzen is just repackaging Creative Labs drivers with modifications. If someone wants a sound card, where are they supposed to go?
 
ocellaris said:
Asus has just as many driver problems as Creative (if not more), and Auzen is just repackaging Creative Labs drivers with modifications. If someone wants a sound card, where are they supposed to go?
Click to expand...

Never had any issues with asus drivers or hardware. It just works, setup once and done.
 
reaper12 said:
that's a bit narrow minded isn't it? I mean creative had a bad year or two around the time of the release of Vista, but since then they have been ok, no better or no worse than Asus. And if drivers are your biggest problem, then, there are always third party drivers. Both Asus and Creative have them.

Sorry, not defending Creative, just think the attitude of hating a company and saying you would never use any of their products again is a bit much. If creative released an awesome sound card, the best one ever, for a great price you wouldnt buy it?

Getting back to the sound card, the Z is a really amazing sound card. There is no bloatware, just a streamlined installation with just the essentials. Everything just works.
Click to expand...

Narrow minded? Maybe, but as stated it is my opinion. Creative started having bad years long ago, more than one or two in my opinion. I guess i have been lucky with my experiences with asus.
My expectations for sound cards have changed over the years, i no longer need anymore than a signal out to be happy with a sound card. Separate DAC and amp these days. With that said, i do not believe there is anything creative could come out with that would make me want to try their products again "awesome sound card" or not. Are they going to change the nature of digital sound signals? Not likely. Burned more than once on their products and there drivers.
This is my opinion and just because you do not agree does not mean it will change my opinion of creative, their products, or past treatment of customers.
 
Snufykat said:
Never had any issues with asus drivers or hardware. It just works, setup once and done.
Click to expand...

Works for you so its better for everyone, right? Aside from the fact that most Asus cards have GX enabled by default which means out of the box the cards lead to system crashes and sound problems.
 
Snufykat said:
Never had any issues with asus drivers or hardware. It just works, setup once and done.
Click to expand...

Not my experience. We got an Asus soundcard for a system at work and holy fuck with getting that thing to work. The drivers on the site were non-functional, and the drivers on the CD were outdated. And you never, ever, want to deal with Asus RMA support. It is far and away the worst of any company we've ever dealt with (and we've dealt with most of them).

Now none of that is to say you should never get Asus stuff, but it is rather silly to get all pissy at Creative and then pretend like Asus is great.
 
Sycraft said:
Not my experience. We got an Asus soundcard for a system at work and holy fuck with getting that thing to work. The drivers on the site were non-functional, and the drivers on the CD were outdated. And you never, ever, want to deal with Asus RMA support. It is far and away the worst of any company we've ever dealt with (and we've dealt with most of them).

Now none of that is to say you should never get Asus stuff, but it is rather silly to get all pissy at Creative and then pretend like Asus is great.
Click to expand...

I really love Asus products in general, especially my STX, but I have yet to successfully install the stock drivers, from the CD or website either one, on a PC and get the card working. I have to use the Unified drivers or nothing at all. Doesn't really bother me, but then again I went into the purchase knowing I would likely ditch the stock drivers anyway.
 
If I had some spare cash to spend on a sound card and a decent cable, I might give the series a try. Hopefully it's alright, as Creative really needs to get its s*it straight with some of the more recent flops they've put out.
 
guitarslingerchris said:
I really love Asus products in general, especially my STX, but I have yet to successfully install the stock drivers, from the CD or website either one, on a PC and get the card working. I have to use the Unified drivers or nothing at all. Doesn't really bother me, but then again I went into the purchase knowing I would likely ditch the stock drivers anyway.
Click to expand...

Ya it isn't a deal killer, if I felt Asus was a deal killer, well we wouldn't buy them at work since I'm the one who makes that kind of decision. However they have their problems. So to hate on Creative for driver issues (which they do have for sure) but to give Asus a pass as having no problems is disingenuous to me.
 
I love soundcards in general, and after a many year dry spell we have had without new hardware (I literally had the X-FI Elite pro for 7 years and kept moving it from system to system), I jumped at the chance to try the Creative Recon 3D (SW was good, HW was crap), then the ASUS Xonar Phoebus (HW is good, but SW is crap), and now the Creative SoundBlaster ZX (both HW and SW are good)... and I will probably keep trying any new cards that interest me from whatever company. I don't really hold grudges - life is too short (and new audio cards too rare since the general consumer would just as well use Integrated graphics and sound to play Angry Birds.
 
i dont think I've ever had SB driver issues and I've been using their cards since forever. Only problem I ever had was with a PCI X-Fi and using SLI video cards on my X58 board. Switched to PCIe X-Fi and issue went away. Issue wasn't even CL fault.
 
ocellaris said:
Works for you so its better for everyone, right? Aside from the fact that most Asus cards have GX enabled by default which means out of the box the cards lead to system crashes and sound problems.
Click to expand...

My opinion is based on my personal experience with their hardware that i bought and paid for just as your opinion is based on your experience. Sounds like I got lucky with the asus hardware i have, from your perspective.
 
Sycraft said:
Now none of that is to say you should never get Asus stuff, but it is rather silly to get all pissy at Creative and then pretend like Asus is great.
Click to expand...

Sorry if i gave you that impression. As stated I guess i got lucky with the asus hardware that i have purchased. Have not good luck with creative since the awe32 days.
 
still cant get my hands on this card in Canada. No one stocks it except newegg.ca but their prices and shipping make it nearly $200

And creative, after all this time, doesnt ship to Canada...Jeeze, what is this? the 80's?
 
Ive had issues with pretty much all brands weather it be Asus, Auzentech or creative but not alot of options and with good speakers and a good headset onboard just doesn't cut it, tried my headset with onboard and no headphone amp and it was awful
 
since z and zx cards share the same hardware and that we already had a thread about the Z model there is nothing new to be read here.

if you got a zxr model then that would be more interesting.

just s few questions though, did you look inside the card you got? did it come with Gold Capacitors?

and since i own Recon3d and love it to death for games like BF3, what is the first thing you noticed in sound quality of the zx compared to Recon3d? im asking this because some people from different forums are saying that the sound quality in games is not that different between Recond3d and the new Z/Zx, true? false?
 
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I can understand company resentment towards Creative as they have been rather dubious in the past regarding Daniel K and not supporting their products that although some may be years old consumers are still buying brand new off the shelf.

Creative had soo many issues with xfi in its early days that I went with Auzentech XFI Forte and have had nothing but problems with that cards static and sporadic noise etc. Which got me to thinking about sound cards again as the Forte has not done any better on windows 8.

After reading about asus bugs, recon blunders and few cards with updated drivers, auzentech seems out of the game as does HT Omega Claro which has no pcie sound cards. I found an XFI TITANIUM for cheap at a micro center and purchased that card just recently which never even worked on my brand new build, installed the card and windows 8 would not boot up. Either the card is defective or It doesnt play well with new gigabyte motherboards because the FORTE card is detected with no problems. So my first shot at a new high end card has not gone well at all and the Titanium is going back, then heard news that there are others who have also had this problem with Titanium HD cards so I very much doubt I will try another one even though micro center has more in stock.

THat leaves the Xonar Essence STX, the PHOEBUS and creatives new Zx card and an assortment of omega claros which are all pci and therefore a no go for the price.

While early reports are good on the Zx it doesnt seem to have good hardware function as most of the processing is being sent to the computers CPU. I do like creatives gaming features and could certainly use some foot steps in shooters so that I can live for more than ten seconds haha. Windows 8 does permit hardware on a sound card to perform the functions for which it was intended yet the creative cards now offload the hardest work to the CPU.

At this point im considering tossing in the towel for now as my new gigabyte z77x ud5h has the realtek 898 on it.

At this point maybe its best to see what the ZXR brings to the table after a few months of reviews and forum comments as well as whether Asus gets their act together with the xonar cards software.
 
conghelach said:
Creative had soo many issues with xfi in its early days that I went with Auzentech XFI Forte and have had nothing but problems with that cards static and sporadic noise etc. Which got me to thinking about sound cards again as the Forte has not done any better on windows 8.

At this point maybe its best to see what the ZXR brings to the table after a few months of reviews and forum comments as well as whether Asus gets their act together with the xonar cards software.
Click to expand...

I'm in a similar boat. My Auzentech Xfi Forte made all kinds of static noise and I used the electric tape trick to silence it. Even though, I spent $150 when I bought it so was quite disappointed I had to wrap tape around it to fix it. Basically, I've been looking to replace it since but not sure what would do the trick. I'm hoping this Creative ZX is the answer. Personally I never experienced issues with Creative. I use them up until I bought the Auzentech.
 
TroyX said:
since z and zx cards share the same hardware and that we already had a thread about the Z model there is nothing new to be read here.

if you got a zxr model then that would be more interesting.

just s few questions though, did you look inside the card you got? did it come with Gold Capacitors?
Click to expand...

I got my ZXR today. The capacitors are fine gold on the sound card and the DB.

The capacitors are physically much larger on the ZXR card than the ones on the Titanium (non HD) I just removed.
 
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mlapgw said:
I got my ZXR today. The capacitors are fine gold on the sound card and the DB.

The capacitors are physically much larger on the ZXR card than the ones on the Titanium (non HD) I just removed.
Click to expand...


Whoa. Where are they selling it?
 
mlapgw said:
I got my ZXR today. The capacitors are fine gold on the sound card and the DB.

The capacitors are physically much larger on the ZXR card than the ones on the Titanium (non HD) I just removed.
Click to expand...

No pics? :p
 
I bought the base version of the new Sound Blaster card's, the "Z".

It comes only with the microphone. No ACM, no extra inputs/outputs, etc. I just wouldn't use them.

I went from a Creative X-Fi Titantium PCIe to the Sound Blaster Z. I'm impressed:

-Drivers are solid. No issues installing/updating (drivers on CD were old? lol)
-Software is good. I haven't had any issues and lots of options.
-Headphones/Mic and speakers plugged in at the same time and switchable with software. (why haven't they done this before?)
-Improved clarity. I played Borderlands 2 for 20-30 minutes and watched a few DTS movies. With my PC 360 headphones and Z5500's, a noticeable improvement in clarity. "Crystal Clear" sounds. I didn't think sound could sound more clear than it did with my XFi.
-No pops (Titanium did this on occasion)
-SBX software "enhancements" seem...odd. I don't like it personally...I've disabled it.

Overall, very good upgrade and I'm only using the base model. Kudos Creative...
 
conghelach said:
While early reports are good on the Zx it doesnt seem to have good hardware function as most of the processing is being sent to the computers CPU. I do like creatives gaming features and could certainly use some foot steps in shooters so that I can live for more than ten seconds haha. Windows 8 does permit hardware on a sound card to perform the functions for which it was intended yet the creative cards now offload the hardest work to the CPU.
Click to expand...

I thought the intent of a dedicated sound card was to remove all sound processing from the CPU? I've not yet read any reviews which back what you've said - can you throw some links my way so I can read up on this a bit more?

Thanks!
 
samduhman said:
I'm in a similar boat. My Auzentech Xfi Forte made all kinds of static noise and I used the electric tape trick to silence it. Even though, I spent $150 when I bought it so was quite disappointed I had to wrap tape around it to fix it. Basically, I've been looking to replace it since but not sure what would do the trick. I'm hoping this Creative ZX is the answer. Personally I never experienced issues with Creative. I use them up until I bought the Auzentech.
Click to expand...

yeah thats what I spent on mine, sure doesnt make you wanna shell anotehr 150 bucks for another suckass card, the titanium HD did not leave me with good feelings about creative and asus cards are also plagued with driver issues and what not, auzentech is def outta the game, seems like nobody cares about sound and for a hundred bucks or more a sound card should fucking work and you shouldnt have to jump through all kinds of hoops to get it to work. I have heard good things about the creative zx card and upcoming zxr but I dunno not alot of professional reviews to go on and seems like these cards pawn the most intensive sound tasks to the cpu.
 
Logun said:
I thought the intent of a dedicated sound card was to remove all sound processing from the CPU? I've not yet read any reviews which back what you've said - can you throw some links my way so I can read up on this a bit more?

Thanks!
Click to expand...


I know right, the z series cards are offloading to the cpu which kind of negates the purpose of having a sound card, that wouldnt be acceptable if we were talking about a graphics card. too many band aids these days on sound card issues no wonder more and more people are going with onboard sound and from what I hear the realtek 898 is really good, I have it on my new gigabyte z77 board maybe i'll give that a try.
I dont have any links handy but if you check professional reviews on the z series soundcards im sure you find the information, I reviewed alot of info but didnt bookmark any of it. Windows 8 permits hardware emulation for sound unlike vista and 7 so i dont understand why creative decided the cpu you should do the heavy work.
 
Logun said:
I thought the intent of a dedicated sound card was to remove all sound processing from the CPU? I've not yet read any reviews which back what you've said - can you throw some links my way so I can read up on this a bit more?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

the recons use the same CORE3 processor as the new z series, z series brings improvements perhaps googling about core3 processor will reveal more info on this, i'll try to look back for some links.

would be nice if sound cards did what they are supposed to. would also be nice if that dam hd4000 integrated graphics on my intel 3770 cpu could be utilized by the cpu for processing and improving cpu performance instead of just sitting there disabled.
 
 
Logun said:
I thought the intent of a dedicated sound card was to remove all sound processing from the CPU?
Click to expand...

It's not creative's fault that Microsoft pulled the rug out from under them when they removed Directsound/EAX from Vista. After that you had a situation where people had all these cards (X-Fi, Audigy2, etc) with hardware acceleration that you couldn't use even if you wanted to.

Creative improved their OpenAL support but it was too late to re-invent the wheel. Game developers just went to software audio instead of OpenAL. Consider that during the heyday of Directsound/EAX most people still used single-core processors. There were significant advantages to offloading extra processing. Now most gaming systems have at least 2 if not 4 cores, which almost no games make full use of. With extra cores sitting there idle in most situations, software audio is not as big of a deal as it once was.

Now Microsoft finally re-introduced hardware audio acceleration in Windows 8, but dropped the ball by making Windows 8 suck. Most gamers continue to use Windows 7 and I don't see that changing until Windows 9. Also note that even if the card has the ability to do hardware sound acceleration (as even the older creative cards do in Vista and 7 via OpenAL), you still are at the mercy of game developers to actually implement it... Unless you expect the guys at creative to somehow hardware accelerate audio that the game devs themselves intend to be processed on the CPU?
 
conghelach said:
I know right, the z series cards are offloading to the cpu which kind of negates the purpose of having a sound card, that wouldnt be acceptable if we were talking about a graphics card. too many band aids these days on sound card issues no wonder more and more people are going with onboard sound and from what I hear the realtek 898 is really good, I have it on my new gigabyte z77 board maybe i'll give that a try.
I dont have any links handy but if you check professional reviews on the z series soundcards im sure you find the information, I reviewed alot of info but didnt bookmark any of it. Windows 8 permits hardware emulation for sound unlike vista and 7 so i dont understand why creative decided the cpu you should do the heavy work.
Click to expand...

You're late to the party; hardware acceleration meant something 10 years ago but doesn't any longer. This has been irrelevant for a long time, CPU's passed the threshold of needing help for audio processing more than a decade ago. Soundcards are used for improvements to surround sound, increased sound fidelity, etc. Hardware acceleration, however, is dead because it quite simply isn't needed; you can benchmark games with sound drivers uninstalled and there will absolutely not be a difference in framerate from CPU overhead.

Realtek integrated audio is also horrible. I've used it from time to time on my P8Z77 deluxe board and the quality in comparison to any discrete card i've used - among some recent ones have been the Titanium HD, Essence STX, and ZX - the onboard sound is shit in comparison. And I do mean, quite literally, it sounds like shit - the sound is tiny, bass lacks punch, and lacks the warmth of what a good discrete card can provide.
 
conghelach said:
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/img/pcw/docs/475/452/html/25.jpg.html

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?p=4517114

http://www.techpowerup.com/170546/Creative-Introduces-the-Sound-Blaster-Z-Series-Sound-Cards.html

http://forums.creative.com/archive/index.php?t-697046.html

http://forums.creative.com/archive/index.php?t-697302.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/321577-28-sound-blaster-recon3d-fatal1ty-professional

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?p=4509331

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/322588-28-titanium-recon3d
Click to expand...

Thank you for the links but they do not support what you have said about increase CPU utilization with this sound card.

Sorry to say but some of those links are just junk too..? Not sure I understand what you're trying to show me?

So far I've read no reviews that have pointed out anything about increased CPU utilization....
 
Logun said:
Not sure I understand what you're trying to show me?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure anyone here understands what you are asking?

And no, hardware acceleration isn't the "intent" of a dedicated sound card. Even without hardware processing capabilities, many sound cards contain superior DACs as well as many extra features (even if they are processed in software).
 
GotNoRice said:
I'm not sure anyone here understands what you are asking?

And no, hardware acceleration isn't the "intent" of a dedicated sound card. Even without hardware processing capabilities, many sound cards contain superior DACs as well as many extra features (even if they are processed in software).
Click to expand...


In response to :
Originally Posted by conghelach

While early reports are good on the Zx it doesnt seem to have good hardware function as most of the processing is being sent to the computers CPU.
Click to expand...

I was asking for clarity if:
1) does the use of this sound card result in a change in CPU usage (up or down)?

2) If the answer to (1) is No, then I am asking for clarity as to the function of such a card as I thought the purpose of a dedicated sound card was to remove audio processing from the CPU (and to me that means a reduction in CPU usage?)



When you say that many sound card contain superior DACs - you mean superior to onboard sound right?
 
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