X-Fi on Z87

[fat_al]

Hey guys,

Haven't posted here in ages, but it feels good to be back in the swing of things!

I'm doing a major overhaul on my aging i7-920 build from a few years back. I'm sticking with Intel, and jumped over to a Z87 board.

I'm really excited to make the move, but I have a question for you audiophiles.

I have an older X-Fi PCI board (can't quite recall what the model was, and it's not in front of me currently) which produced great sound and came with a front panel bay that had all sorts of inputs and outputs. Since my motherboard doesn't have a PCI slot, I won't be able to use the card. It served me well, but it's time to move on. Will I notice a difference in sound quality? Is there still purpose in a standalone card? Should I get a Xonar?

My main question, however, is: will I still be able to use my front bay? It uses some sort of ribbon cable that connects to the X-Fi card, and I think it gets its power from a little four or five pin cable from the PSU. Will I be able to get it to speak natively with the motherboard with an adapter of sorts?

Thank you so much in advance.

A

 

[Nenu]

The newer Creative Z, ZX and ZXR are a good improvement in sound quality on the older Creative cards.
You probably wont be able to use your front bay with any other card, at least not in the same way.
Manual hacking of the connections is possible to some extent, but all that will be is rerouting of other connectors.

The ZX and ZXR have an external mic, volume control and headphone out which might suit your needs and the ZXR is the best audio quality gaming card as well.
some info:
http://www.tested.com/tech/pcs/454839-tested-why-high-end-pc-sound-card-matters/

 

[OFaceSIG]

I agree your front panel most likely will not work with newer generation cards.

 

[prtzlboy]

X-Fi cards were great (I know you had a real one since you have the front panel bay).

Some new Z87 motherboards come with pretty decent audio solutions with components isolated from the rest of the motherboard, good SNR, and even headphone amps. That said, since you are coming from a high-end X-Fi, you will probably not be as happy with on-board sound.

Also, your old front panel will most likely not be usable

BTW, which Z87 board did you get?

 

[PGHammer]

X-Fi cards were great (I know you had a real one since you have the front panel bay).

Some new Z87 motherboards come with pretty decent audio solutions with components isolated from the rest of the motherboard, good SNR, and even headphone amps. That said, since you are coming from a high-end X-Fi, you will probably not be as happy with on-board sound.

Also, your old front panel will most likely not be usable

BTW, which Z87 board did you get?

The X-Fi in PCI is normally a good card (I have one sitting on the shelf); however, there's a reason it's shelfware.
The X-Fi DSP has an address flaw in the 4 GB address range (that means any operating system that is either x64 or uses PAE is affected); therefore, the only "workaround" is replacing the card itself. Fortunately, any of Creative's PCI Express SoundCore DSP-based solutions are at least decent (as long as you stick with those that have the EMI/RFI shielding). The shielding requirement is why some (not all) OEM versions of the Sound Blaster Z don't make the cut (SB1502 is the unshielded version).

That address issue is why my mom didn't get it - she has more system RAM than I do.

 

[OFaceSIG]

If you can find an x-fi titanium HD its a fantastic card. I intend on using it until creative stops writing drivers for it. It still has cmss-3d, will drive cans up to 330 ohms and doesn't create cpu overhead.

 

[TroyX]

If you can find an x-fi titanium HD its a fantastic card. I intend on using it until creative stops writing drivers for it. It still has cmss-3d, will drive cans up to 330 ohms and doesn't create cpu overhead.

got one of those for $80, barely used, best sound card I ever heard so far.