Creative X-Fi - PCI-e version...

Has anyone tried this? I've always hoped to get a 1x pci-e card so I can use that space below my vid card for cooling items, and this is about the only one. From what I've seen though, pci-e is said to be crap for sound, and Creative doesn't even LIST this unit on their site, let alone support it.

BTW full name is X-Fi Xtreme Audio VARPAK PCI Express

HiProfile said:

Has anyone tried this? I've always hoped to get a 1x pci-e card so I can use that space below my vid card for cooling items, and this is about the only one. From what I've seen though, pci-e is said to be crap for sound, and Creative doesn't even LIST this unit on their site, let alone support it.

BTW full name is X-Fi Xtreme Audio VARPAK PCI Express

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Can't imagine a reason why PCIe should be bad for Audio aside from the fact that it hasn't been done much yet and thus the appropriate chips for audio controlling on the PCIe aren't being designed and manufactured on large scale yet either. Those that might exist - I haven't seen anything yet - are probably largely untested with weak software support as well.

But, right now Creative has X-Fi out for notebooks to begin with while they struggle to adapt their X-Fi chipset to the differences between PCI and PCIe. Lets make a guess, XMAS gift shopping?

Cheers, Flix

If it is like the pci Xtreme Audio then it is a POS and not a real X-Fi. I'd wait until some other X-Fi models come out on pci-e.

>HyperlogiK< said:

If it is like the pci Xtreme Audio then it is a POS and not a real X-Fi. I'd wait until some other X-Fi models come out on pci-e.

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Naw, its X-fi allright, both the released model and the one to appear - lets say xmasish - for desktops.

Flix

flixotide said:

Naw, its X-fi allright, both the released model and the one to appear - lets say xmasish - for desktops.

Flix

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But why brand it X-Fi Xtreme Audio, when the pci X-Fi Xtreme Audio doesn't have X-Fi functionality?

HiProfile said:

Has anyone tried this? I've always hoped to get a 1x pci-e card so I can use that space below my vid card for cooling items, and this is about the only one. From what I've seen though, pci-e is said to be crap for sound, and Creative doesn't even LIST this unit on their site, let alone support it.

BTW full name is X-Fi Xtreme Audio VARPAK PCI Express

Click to expand...

From the Vice President of Creative himself

"As far as PCI Express (PCIe) is concerned, which is the next bus, what we found is that the performance of PCIe is truly bad for audio. We are seeing four times degradation on the bus for audio.

PCIe is designed for graphics and high data transfer, but audio sends very small packets and the overhead can be very big! Moving the data across PCIe is much, much higher than PCI. So what we have to do is go back to the drawing board and work on the transport part of the chip and re-design it to add more silicon to overcome some of the problems we had with PCIe. So for us to come up with a PCIe solution is going to take a while because we have to overcome the problems we're facing with that bus."

So.. in short, I wouldn't use it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102016

Thats not a real X-Fi, as in there is no XFi chip on there.

majinwar said:

From the Vice President of Creative himself

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Thats what I had read somewhere, thats why I asked. Seeing as how Creative has been the leader in 'average consumer' sound, I was thinking it was more marketing BS than truth. Why redesign something for a new port (pci-e) when every target user still has the old port (pci)? If you really look into their Audigy line's history, there's lots of little hidden things like how they are internally 16bit/48khz, yet they claim 24bit/96khz. A good example of 'it aint broke, don't fix it' was how they used the chipset (designed before 1999) they aquired in a merger/buyout for several years unchanged.

I'm just looking for something thats designed well enough to not cause me problems in games, and pci-e format to stick in the 1x slot above my vid card. Every Abit board's onboard sound always gave me BIG problems, and my ancient M300 2ch card sound better than their IP35-E onboard crap, not to mention my favorite game won't CRASH anymore...