Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Sound Card (70SB073A00000)
by Creative
|
List Price: Our Price: $87.00 You Save: $12.90 (13%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $34.99 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
|---|
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Sound Card (70SB073A00000)
Customer Review: Great card, good software, annoying installation
Summary: 4 Stars
The sound from this card blows onboard audio away. I couldn't believe the difference when I first tried it. Music is clearer, video game sounds are crisper, and overall everything just sounds a hundred times better. There's no way to describe it in words; you really just need to listen for yourself. I've also found that my games run about 10 to 20 fps higher now that I'm not using onboard audio.
I've watched a few DVDs with the included PowerDVD program, and they sound just as good as games. The same thing happens with music, it's just better!
This card features an Intel HD Audio front panel connector (not compatible with the AC'97 audio connector) which is nice. It seems like very few cards offer it.
On the downside, installing the drivers and software is like pulling teeth. The software installation alone took longer on my computer than installing Supreme Commander (an 8 gig game), and required 3 reboots. Plus there's a driver updating utility that needs to be dealt with, and the ever-present "Register Me" notice.
The Creative software itself is a little bit unnecessary and the interface can be confusing. Instead of having all audio options built into one single program, Creative broke it up into many programs. To change options for Game Mode is one program, to change options for Entertainment Mode is another, to change general options is yet another program. The programs link to each other, but its still annoying.
Overall, I highly recommend this card. Games, movies, and music all sound fantastic on it.
(Side note: when installing the software, choose "Minimum Installation". The full install includes tons of stuff that you don't need.)
Customer Review: Simply Amazing
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this soundcard about 9 months ago. It deserves 5 stars, if not for the price. But, it was money well-spent.
First off: Will this work in DX10 games? Yes, although I do not have a reference - I do believe that Creative Labs has stated they create a driver for the X-Fi cards (Notice I said X-Fi, not audigy!) to work in DX10/Vista.
I am running this card on P7800 (7.1) speakers.
In battlefield 2, the difference in sound quality is astounding. I had thought that the sounds were pretty good when I was running my integrated audio on 7.1, wrong! Sounds are clearer, sharper, cleaner, far more realistic. It's almost as if you just walked into a puddle of water. Or, you've just shot a rifle. On normal quality, these sounds get muffled. The sound quality has to be reduced in order to keep it from greatly affecting the frame rates.
Yes, this sound card will increase your frame rates. Especially if you are like me and have more than 2 speakers. Now, I would not suggest to anyone with $20 walmart spealers: go out and buy this sound card.
Should you get this sound card? Yes! That is, if you are using good speakers and you want a realistic gaming experience.
My personal suggestion: P7800 or GigaWorks S750
Would I buy this card again? Yes.
Customer Review: Big Improvement in sound but drivers can be a hassle
Summary: 4 Stars
Easy installation. Remove all sound drivers from device manager. Open case, insert sound card. Turn on computer. Windows finds it and asks for the install disk. Put in install disk and install. Do a computer restart and I GOT THE BLACK SCREEN OF DEATH. After trying several different work arounds, including a windows repair I had to send my computer to a shop and have the harddrive formatted and Windows reinstalled. We can't prove the software caused the crash but I haven't had any problems until I installed this software. Even with a clean hardrive and fresh operating system I still had to install the software twice to get it to work.
But now that it is installed and working properly the sound is a vast improvement over the motherboard sound. I'm using the Logitec X-540 5.1 speakers and the sound is crisp, clean and clear. If the install would have went smoothly I would have given this 5 stars.
If I had to do it again I would not use the software but go directly to the Creative Sound website and load the updated driver directly from them.
My computer is less than a year old. I'm running windows XP, 2 gig ram on an Asus M2N32 SLI Deluxe Motherboard with an AMD 64 X2 Dual Core Processor. I use Spysweeper and keep it up to date.
Customer Review: Problems wirh Windows XP SP3 and latest (June 2008) Drivers
Summary: 4 Stars
If you are using an analog microphone with this soundcard and are using Windows XP with service pack 3 you will not be able to use your microphone plugged into the back of this card. However, the front panel microphone connection will work (if you have it hooked up to your case).
The microphone connection on the back of this card is the white top-most connector (not the pink connector, which is usually the standard). This white jack is called a "flexijack" by Creative, and it is supposed to sense what type of device you have plugged into it and allow you to use it as a microphone jack. It doubles as a "Digital I/O" or "Mic in / Line in" jack.
The current drivers for Windows XP from creative (as of June '08) do not work properly and you will not be able to configure the "flexijack" as a microphone connection.
Aside from the microphone issue the soundcard works fine.
Customer Review: Great sound card, software mostly great
Summary: 4 Stars
The card rocks on Windows Vista. The new software really brings out sounds and makes GREAT use of the subwoofer for video games as well as for listening to music. Two gripes. First, the legacy Creative Media Source 5 Player does not work correctly with Windows Vista, it was designed for XP. There is a separate X-Fi volume control that does work with Vista. They should have one integrated panel that is fully functional with Vista. Second gripe, unless you buy an add-on, you can only burn/rip WMA format, you can't burn MP-3s or any other sound format to disk, portable player or to your computer. You are stuck with WMA unless you buy the $10 recording pack. Granted, not big bucks, but should be part of the package, not an add-on. Bottom line, great card, some software is great, other parts are either outdated or missing, worth the upgrade if you have Windows Vista.