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If you read our original review of the X-Fi way back in November 2005, you already know about this card. Back then, Creative packaged this exact same card with a drive bay and remote and charged an impossible to justify $280 for the X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS soundcard.
We ended up recommending its cheaper sibling, the X-Fi XtremeMusic instead.
Fast-forward a year and a half, ditch the remote and drive bay, and you’ve got the XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Professional Series priced at $130 less than the original. But does the X-Fi age like a fine wine or a punch-drunk palooka? For Creative, it’s pure vino!
Unlike the other two boards we tested here, the X-Fi continues to use a true DSP with “10,000 MIPS of power.” We don’t know how true that 10K figure is, but in our tests, the X-Fi remains the boss, especially when compared to the CMI8788, which is nothing more than a glorified I/O chip. In FEAR with graphics options cranked down and audio options cranked up to emphasize soundcard performance, the X-Fi led by 10 percent across the board. However, if C-Media ever releases multithreaded audio drivers, the day of the DSP will likely fade.
Of course, a good soundcard isn’t just about frame rates. In close listening using reference-quality earphones, two Maximum PC editors favored the X-Fi’s bottom-end push while listening to a variety of 24-bit audio.
We also give the edge in gaming fidelity to the X-Fi, as the subtle audio cues in games (in particular, Battlefield 2) stood out with this card. This may be due in part to the developer-relations money Creative spends to help developers utilize its technology. Most top games today support Creative’s OpenAL initiative, which is the only way to get hardware-accelerated positional audio in Microsoft Vista.
Although we think the X-Fi is the best of the cards tested here for general PC use, the real-time Dolby Digital encoding of the two other cards and optical SPDIF make them far better suited for home theater use. We must also note that the now-defunct XtremeMusic version of this card can still be found and is a better value. But for gamers, the X-Fi is the best choice.
DSP gives it a performance edge.
Pointless X-RAM.
| BENCHMARKS | ||||
| X-Meridian 7.1 | ||||
| Fear 5.1 Min (FPS) | 76 | |||
| Fear 5.1 Avg (FPS) | 154 | |||
| Fear 5.1 Max (FPS) | 308 | |||
| Fear Dolby Digital Live Min (FPS) | n/a | |||
| Fear Dolby Digital Live Avg (FPS) | n/a | |||
| Fear Dolby Digital Live Max (FPS) | n/a | |||
| 3DMark03 2.1 0 Sources | 85.5 | |||
| 3DMark03 2.1 24 Sources | 77.1 | |||
| 3DMark03 2.1 60 Sources | 71.1 | |||
| 3DMark03 DDL 0 Sources | n/a | |||
| 3DMark03 DDL 24 Sources | n/a | |||
| 3DMark03 DDL 60 Sources | n/a | |||
| Best scores are bolded. Our killer rig consisted of an Athlon 64 FX-60, 2GB of DDR400, 400GB 7,200rpm, and a GeForce 7950 GX2 running Windows XP Professional. | ||||
eddieddie
November 26, 2007 at 10:10am
I recently went to frys to pick up Creative Labs X-Fi Xtremegamer Fatal1ty Pro sound card. As soon as I got home I poped opened my Antec 900 side panel case and installed Creative Labs Bad boy, and started up my comp. I installed the necessary drivers, booted up cs 1.6 and started playing. Besides the huge diffrence in sound I also noticed a huge performance gain while playing cs 1.6. Everything was so much faster and smoother.
I recommend this product to everyone.
ubuwalker31
May 10, 2007 at 7:53am
X-Fi isn't supported under linux yet, but a proprietary blob driver is expected at the end of the year.
