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X-Fi PCI-E

S

steviep

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jan 18, 2005
Messages
4,985
I know I'm beating the dead horse, but when the hell are PCI-E version of the X-Fi going to come out? I'm all out of PCI slots, thanks to mobo manufacturers for adopting so many PCI-E slots for use with NOTHING :p

Last I heard from the Creative front was "we're having problems with the PCI-E bus and audio, so it'll be a while before our PCI-E product is out" and that was last December.

Unless someone can find an IDE card that's PCI-E, I can't wait to get my hands on a PCI Express sound card... anyone have more up to date info?
 
Creative has no plans of releasing any X-Fi as a PCIe based card. If they can figure it out by the time the X-Fi 2 comes out then maybe we'll see some PCIe 1x or 4x cards.
 
I always thought they had "eventual" plans to do it, which is what they continued to say the last time I checked up on it.
 
Well they may wait until another manufacturer puts out a PCI-E soundcard before making the jump. I can recall them holding onto ISA in the form of the AWE64 and a little known company put out a soundcard (Ensonic?) which sold quite well. Creative went and bought them, and re-branded the card a Sound Blaster PCI and the Live! soon followed.

-E
 
LOL yep I remember that... Somebody's gotta put some real consumer (non network/raid) use to these damn PCI-E slots!!
 
steviep said:
I know I'm beating the dead horse, but when the hell are PCI-E version of the X-Fi going to come out? I'm all out of PCI slots, thanks to mobo manufacturers for adopting so many PCI-E slots for use with NOTHING :p

Last I heard from the Creative front was "we're having problems with the PCI-E bus and audio, so it'll be a while before our PCI-E product is out" and that was last December.

Unless someone can find an IDE card that's PCI-E, I can't wait to get my hands on a PCI Express sound card... anyone have more up to date info?
Click to expand...

Im breeding dust-bunnies with my PCI-E slots, Its a new fast-attack breed which is devastating (evil laugh). Other than that, they are cute little slots mostly for-show on my mobo.

Yeah... When are soundcards coming out? I want a new soundcard and im not about to toss my wifi card or 10/100 card out to do so.
 
I have PCI exhaust fans in mine... lol. Problem is, ALL of those use sleeve-bearing motors and get loud when they are dying. The dust bunnies live under them, though... lol.

I'm not going to be getting a PhysX card either (waste of money), especially when a dual GPU setup can do that and will benefit other things... so SOMEBODY make something useful to standard consumers (i.e. gigabit network cards/raid cards I don't need, as they are built into the mobo!) for these damn slots!
 
Could it because of the costs of switching to PCIe, licensing costs or something?
 
I doubt there is much if any of that to worry about. I think they're being lazy because

a) most people still have PCI slots
b) it would require them to re-engineer their products (i.e. spend money)
 
Engineering costs are a concern, but they could use a PCI-e piggy back hack that the graphics card companies did when the first AGP-PCI-e cards started rolling out. But since Creative really does not have a challenge in this space, they are too busy (lazy) to change to the PCI-e interface since the OEM's arn't screaming for them.

-E
 
There was something floating around on the Net about the reproduced audio in PCI-EX is not as good as PCI. That is why creative has not made cards yet. Google it
 
So going PCI-E now, has some drawbacks is what I can read?
It's not all joy and happiness?

Terra - 1xAGP,. 5xPCI, 1xCNR :D
 
The drawbacks to Creative are that it costs money to switch. Anything they claim other than that is just because they don't want to tell us they're too cheap to do it.
 
dandragonrage said:
The drawbacks to Creative are that it costs money to switch. Anything they claim other than that is just because they don't want to tell us they're too cheap to do it.
Click to expand...
I'd believe them when they say that using pcie causes sound degradation - remember the problems with soundblasters and via-based pci slots?. The problem isn't the pcie spec though, it's that creative can't write drivers worth a damn.
 
IanG said:
I'd believe them when they say that using pcie causes sound degradation - remember the problems with soundblasters and via-based pci slots?. The problem isn't the pcie spec though, it's that creative can't write drivers worth a damn.
Click to expand...

My X-Fi drivers works just fine? :p

Terra...
 
Your drivers might work, but the firmware on some of those cards causes complete incompatibility on some NF4 boards (mine included). Of course creative won't allow people to update their own firmware. I had to return my X-Fi and hope in a couple months I'll chance a good one. :(

I waaant.
 
mr saturn said:
Your drivers might work, but the firmware on some of those cards causes complete incompatibility on some NF4 boards (mine included). Of course creative won't allow people to update their own firmware. I had to return my X-Fi and hope in a couple months I'll chance a good one. :(

I waaant.
Click to expand...

I have heard about those problems.
One of the reason I am waery of going AMD.
And stuff like dual-core fixes evt.

Terra - But I think they are saying a driver update will fix that problem...not a firmware update?
 
dandragonrage said:
Yeah, go ahead and blame AMD. :confused: It's nobody's fault but Creative's.
Click to expand...

Does AMD make the motherboards?
Don't put words into my mouth...

Terra...
 
Terra said:
I have heard about those problems.
One of the reason I am waery of going AMD.
And stuff like dual-core fixes evt.

Terra - But I think they are saying a driver update will fix that problem...not a firmware update?
Click to expand...

Creative is to blame there.. They are doing free firmware updates (shipping out of your pocket), and apparently on the new revisions the problem is gone. Also, most motherboard manufacturers put a fix into BIOS updates. I'm just stuck with DFI who blame Creative and refuse to fix anything...

Dual core is awesome, as long as you have the microsoft hotfix you'll be singing. I haven't had a single problem with my Opty.
 
mr saturn said:
Creative is to blame there.. They are doing free firmware updates (shipping out of your pocket), and apparently on the new revisions the problem is gone. Also, most motherboard manufacturers put a fix into BIOS updates. I'm just stuck with DFI who blame Creative and refuse to fix anything...

Dual core is awesome, as long as you have the microsoft hotfix you'll be singing. I haven't had a single problem with my Opty.
Click to expand...

I run a Intel I850 chipset and have never had to do anything but install the provied drivers, for any hardware.
Last time I updated my BIOS was...over 2 years ago, but still doing fine.

Terra - That was my point...
 
amdmadman said:
There was something floating around on the Net about the reproduced audio in PCI-EX is not as good as PCI. That is why creative has not made cards yet. Google it
Click to expand...


1. there is already a PCIe soundcard: http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/symphony.php

2. I do not see how there should be any difference in audio quality between a PCI and a PCIe board, unless the reduction of ground connectors is a problem. What i am trying to say is that fewer AGND pins on PCIe x1 may have an influence on the analog signal quality. While I am not much of an analog EE student, I would bet that this is BS.

here's something that makes a little bit of sense (not much though)
http://www.guru3d.com/newsitem.php?id=3005

saying that due to the serial nature of the PCIe bus, but inherently parallel nature of the data, it is very inefficient. I call BS again, but who knows.
 
Terra said:
I run a Intel I850 chipset and have never had to do anything but install the provied drivers, for any hardware.
Last time I updated my BIOS was...over 2 years ago, but still doing fine.

Terra - That was my point...
Click to expand...

Don't get me wrong, this is the only problem I've had in terms of drivers. Most manufacturers trip over themselves to make sure things are working perfectly for nForce systems (it's where a majority of the enthusiasts are- for the time being).

I keep up to date with the latest BIOS for overclocking reasons, four more megahertz out of my RAM and I can get out of that blasted divider territory.

Anyway... I forgot what my point was. :rolleyes:
 
drizzt81: You are correct in calling BS. Yes, PCI-E does have overhead. However, it does not matter because even 1x PCI-E is 250MB/sec. 8-channel 192kHz 24-bit PCM audio takes about 4.5MB/sec. You'd need a ratio of about 1:55 data: overhead to saturate 1x PCI-E. Add a little buffering in there to send bursts of maybe a few KB tops at a time and what do you get? No problems. Unless you really consider < 10ms delay a problem.
 
I'm not really sure, but I bet it's pretty high if you have several other devices on the bus, for example a SCSI controller like I do...
 
dandragonrage said:
I'm not really sure, but I bet it's pretty high if you have several other devices on the bus, for example a SCSI controller like I do...
Click to expand...

Okay but I was just asking to get a number to compare with :)
I only use my PCI for X-Fi, and NIC...and then the AGP...
Got 3 empty PCI lost straing me in the face(cheeky buggers ;) *L*)

Terra...
 
Pro level cards are a different story, as they need pretty heavy bandwidth. Creative (or others) have to get on the ball with this one :p
 
drizzt81 said:
here's something that makes a little bit of sense (not much though)
http://www.guru3d.com/newsitem.php?id=3005
saying that due to the serial nature of the PCIe bus, but inherently parallel nature of the data, it is very inefficient. I call BS again, but who knows.
Click to expand...
Well, if they can make a usb Audigy2, they should be able to produce a pcie version, unless there's something different in the 'serial' part of USB compared to pcie :rolleyes:
 
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