Z690/Z90 with Creative X-Fi audio support? Need surround sound for headphone

[OpenSource Ghost]

My ASUS Xonar DGX with low-latency UNi drivers is awesome, but uses Dolby Headphone, which sucks regardless of profiles I try. There are several positional audio technologies out there - Dolby Headphone, Creative X-Fi, Razer, and some others. X-Fi sounds best and I'd like a motherboard that offers it through onboard Realtek audio chip. Are there any Z690/Z790 motherboards that offer Creative's X-Fi audio through Realtek audio chip? It used to be one of competetigve advantages between motherboard manufactuers.

Yes, I know I can just buy an audio card, but I'd rather not spend extra $ and get Creative's tech via motherboard makers.

 

[OpenSource Ghost]

Moderators, please move this to Intel Motherboards section.

 

[MavericK]

I think you might just need to buy something like a Sound Blaster X3 or X4. I haven't heard of or seen any motherboards lately that have Creative tech built-in.

 

[GotNoRice]

Yeah they offered a motherboard audio software solution but they don't offer it anymore: https://us.creative.com/p/software/sound-blaster-x-fi-mb3

Your best bet would be to grab a cheap X-Fi Titanium from eBay. Examples:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/155277723623
https://www.ebay.com/itm/185653180888
https://www.ebay.com/itm/153840710737
https://www.ebay.com/itm/155101585633

I'm on the same page as you in that I prefer the headphone surround that the X-Fi offers better than the alternatives. I'm running an X-Fi Titanium in my main and backup systems, and I have an X-Fi Titanium HD in my music system and an X-Fi Xtrememusic in my HTPC. They are great cards and work fantastic with Windows 11. I'm not sure why you would actually want to use the Realtek onboard audio, regardless of software. Realtek sucks.