Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Sound Card (70SB073A00000)
by Creative
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List Price: Our Price: $84.99 You Save: $14.91 (15%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $34.99 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Sound Card (70SB073A00000)
Customer Review: After weeks of research and testing the final answer is:
Summary: 5 Stars
Let me say this. I brought the Xtreme Game card and the T40 speakers. Now first lets' review the speakers. Note: (this review is posted for the sound card and the speakers)
Creative T-40 speakers - without the Xtreme card -very good; with the Xtreme card - Outstanding
These speakers will not truly perform at top quality unless you have a high end sound card. My motherboard has what it calls "HD sound" and it can handle the T-40's fairly well. I played around with it and sure enough I discovered that the T-40's bass is there and just tweaking the sound card a little brings it out. So I thought if the on-board sound does this what would a real sound card do? I had an Audigy in the other computer so I went out and purchased the Xtreme card to see the difference and WHOA! What sound came out of them and that card after I installed the options package from the Creative website. Now on to the sound card. Warning (Only use the programs from the website!)
SoundBlaster Xtreme Gamers card - without T-40 - excellent ; with T-40 - Outstanding (or better)
This card is truly exceptional. It even made my cheap Altec Lansing speaks sound good! And when you add this to the T-40's?! Oh my goodness! The bass shook the walls! Here is the deal. You have to use the software that comes with the sound card to adjust the system to your liking. And the card makes the T-40's into a 2.1 all you have to do is select the option. The card is the secret here. You see the card detects the T-40's and of course is designed to play to their strengths so the sound is better with them. I tried 4 different speaker combinations: a 5.1 Altec Lansing, 2.1 Bose, 7.1 Creative Labs, and the T-40. The T-40 performed the best but only a fraction better than the Bose but at half the cost. The Mid-range on the T-40 is really good. There are 3 selections on the card and they are: Gaming, audio and entertainment. You really do need to change the options to get the best sound. I found that when playing WoW in entertainment mode or audio mode you do not get many of the sounds that you get in game mode. When in game mode you could hear the wind when you were out on the plains and you hear the wind change in the canyon area and change again when in the cold area along with the change of what type of ground you were walking or riding on. You could not hear this difference if you were in either entertainment mode or audio. And the same is true for the other modes. Music while in game mode was dull but switch to audio or entertainment mode and Phil Collins sounds like he is standing in front of you. The card also can adjust your headset for 7.1 which is really special if you have a cheap head set like I do. I used my wife Sony noise reducing head set and once again BAM! Sound all over the place.
Final answer: T-40 - buy these if you really like music and sound and are willing to make the adjustments to your sound card to make them be all they can be. If you are not willing to do this then please keep your money and spend it on the sound card.
Final answer: Xtreme Gamer - Buy this regardless of the speakers you have. The improvement is massive to say the least. I ended up having to buy another card because I used the wife as a test subject and lost my card to her. I do not recommend spending the extra $20 on the next level up because there is no difference in sound only in programs and you can get a better audio program than what comes with the card although what comes with the card is good just not the best.
Customer Review: Great Sound, but limited and poor Creative QC
Summary: 3 Stars
The first card I received didn't work. Apparently there is a rash of cards from Creative that give the following error when you try to install the drivers, "Setup is unable to detect a supported product on your system etc. Setup will exit now." There is no recourse for this bug except to RMA the card. Gratefully Amazon is amazing at doing this, and they had a new card to me in 3 days, and they even paid the return shipping on the defective card.
The second card worked flawlessly, and the sound is truly remarkable. I've been doing pro audio for churches and youth groups for 13 years, and this card even impressed me a bit.
That said, there was a feature I was looking forward to, which isn't supported with this card. Sadly it is only this card in the whole X-fi lineup which doesn't support this feature. The feature I speak of, is Hardware Dolby Digital/DTS decoding. This feature allows you to set your software DVD player to SPDIF output, and have the X-fi take the signal internally (instead of outputting it on the Optical out), and decode it to your speakers directly. The only recourse for playing DVDs with 5.1 (or better) sound is to get a software DVD player that can decode the signals in Software. Not ideal, and a real let down.
The way Creative gets around this in their marketing of the card is to include a free download of PowerDVD that has Dobly Digital/DTS software decoding. However, I was never able to get mine to download, and Creative tech support (in India I might add) was unable to resolve the problem. So I end up having to go buy a copy of PowerDVD to watch my movies in surround.
In summary, this card is great for games and MP3s, it sucks for movies (unless you can get PowerDVD to download), and it sucks worse if you get one of the many bad cards that Creative is putting out. If you do get a bad one, Amazon is amazing at RMAs, so get a replacement. If I had to do it all over again, I'd get this following card instead, and leave this X-fi wannabe alone.
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro Series Sound Card ( 70SB046A00000 )
Customer Review: Good Card but not all that
Summary: 4 Stars
I've been using creative sound cards for about 10 years now. They have been excellent sounding and feature packed.My first was a Sound blaster live gamer 5.1 in 2000,and it is still working well in the computer I let the kids use. My next creative product was(and is) the Inspire 5300 5.1 speaker system. The sound was and is great.Then Came time for me to upgrade my computer so,I went with a top of the line 1st gen Sli rig. Being a gamer The onboard soundblaster chipset sounded great but,I knew,from an FPS point of view,I needed a dedicated sound card so I went with what I knew and selected the Audigy ZS 2 Platinum. The sound blew me away for gaming and the greater dynamic range for music made this sound card worth every penny! Then came time to upgrade again,thanks to a power supply going up in smoke and taking most of my computer componets with it.(Managed to salvaged one vid card,which I gave to a friend, and my beloved Creative ZS2,or so I thought). So I built my new quad core rig,went crossfire this time with the MOBO instead of Sli. The MOBO came with onboard RealT3c which was disabled in BIOS from the get go because i was installing my Audigy sound card.Well plugged it in and installed my OS and all my software and was back up and running,right away I noticed some OS instability.I mucked about in the OS,trying to find the answer for days.Then It dawned on me to try one thing,I went into BIOS,enabled onboard sound,and removed my Audigy,and had no problems with my OS after.I Guess My old sound card bit it too when my PSU went in my old rig. So I needed a new sound card as the onboard just wasn't up to the standards of sound quality I had become use to. so, I got this sound card I then uninstalled all the drivers and software for the Realpiece then turned off onboard in BIOS,powered down,unplugged my computer and plugged in my new XFI gamer.Everything installed without a hitch; as far as making everything sound so much better? To me it sounds the same....great. If you are looking for a new sound card and have purchased and used Creative products in the past this sound card will not disappoint.
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: Hit or Miss
Summary: 2 Stars
I'm giving this item two stars since the majority of reviews have liked the product. However, I could not get the system to recognize the card in either of my two open PCI slots. Setup simply stated "no SB product detected" and immediately closed. Amazon only offers a refund on this type of product and not an exchange so there's no way to know it was a bad card or indicative of the line as a whole. Given the fair number of reviews citing compatibility issues I'd have to say this was most likely the cause.
The main problem with the board, though, is it's almost total lack of documentation. The only instructions including on the package is a basic quick start guide. No troubleshooting information whatsoever is provided out of the box. If you do have a problem, there's almost no way to even begin to know where to check. If there had a been more documentation, I would have spent more time working on the issue.
The setup program also could have offered additional options when it did not see the card. This is actually a rather silly oversight on Creative's behalf. Why would I put an SB disc into the machine and try to install drivers if I didn't actually have an SB product? The logical conclusion is that I did install the hardware but something is wrong. Rather than simply closing the setup program should provided suggestions or at least directed me to a troubleshooting guide.
Bottom line: it's a generally well reviewed card when it installs correctly. But you are taking a chance it won't work in your system.