X-FI Card Difference

[Not Bman]

Not TigerDirect!

TigerDirect is Systemax and CompUSA's online business if not all of CompUSA was bought by Systemax.

I know many many people who have had issues with TigerDirect dealing with rebates, returns, and warranty periods. I would never ever purchase from TigerDirect.

No offense intended, chastity. I know you were simply giving an option of a retailer who ships to Canada.

More expensive for this card anyways.

 

[rotjong]

Thanks for the detail, I knew it was something like that. I think I will take the chance and by it from NCIX. I know people who have before and had no issues. Plus it's the cheapest I can get it for, with shipping it will come to about $100 exactly.

NP. My ASUS motherboard, 4 GB of my 8 GB of Corsair RAM, my Bytecc SATA/eSATA/IDE card, and my ATI 4870 all came from NCIX.

With some items I will pay slightly more and get them from NCIX including paying way way more in shipping rather than NewEgg because I am a VIP member of NCIX which means I get free RMA shipping for 1 year from the date of purchase for an item and priority customer service. For some items this can be very very worthwhile since I only have to deal with NCIX and not the manufacturer if I encounter a problem during that first year and the replacement and shipping aren't at any additional cost. Of course the VIP membership is yearly fee but considering how much I spent on my hardware from NCIX it is well worth the little extra fee.

 

[LordOfLA]

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=222263743&vpn=XONAR D2&manufacture=ASUS TeK

Thats the one I have, though I got it from

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...ame=Asus Xonar D2 7.1 PCI Sound Card - Retail

 

[rotjong]

Wait there is a Titanium version of the X-FI cards? Are they not all PCI-e?

I missed this post before.

Most X-Fi cards are PCI. The X-Fi Titanium is PCI Express. This is not the first PCI-e X-Fi card to be released but the earlier one were garbage and I believe they were phased out. The X-Fi Titanium has shielding to prevent interference from other nearby components which the older PCI-e cards did not have.

 

[LordOfLA]

as does the xonar the xonar has higher quality audio parts though. For what bman will be doing the xonar is the better choice from experiance.

 

[Not Bman]

Oh Lord, why do I trust your opinions lol. I want that Xonar now, but do not really have the money for it. hmmm

 

[rotjong]

Oh Lord, why do I trust your opinions lol. I want that Xonar now, but do not really have the money for it. hmmm

Well. I'm not an ASUS fan when it comes to soundcards but do the math on it. You'll be paying 100 CAD for the X-Fi XtremeGamer. It'll definitely be a better gaming card than the ASUS Xonar but for other stuff maybe or maybe not. I'm not going to debate those merits at this point.

So, 100 CAD for the X-Fi or 150 CAD for the Xonar. A 50 CAD difference. If you buy the X-Fi now and later upgrade you'll be spending more money in the long run.

If you feel confident in LordOfLA's opinion and want the Xonar then I'd advise paying the extra 50 CAD right now and getting it as long as you have the extra 50 CAD to spend.

There are times when you have to weigh the costs. Sometimes it's just better to spend a little more money to begin with than get nickeled and dimed to death later.

 

[Not Bman]

It is 66+ more CAD difference. And you make a good point. It is thinking time now.

 

[rotjong]

It is 66+ more CAD difference. And you make a good point. It is thinking time now.

I was being lazy and rounding down.

Take your time and think it through. It's really all about what you want for your system. Other people can offer suggestions but the buck stops with you.

 

[Not Bman]

One last question about the Xonar, if I get it (with shipping almost 200+) how long is it going to be worth that, in quality and usage, how long?

 

[rotjong]

One last question about the Xonar, if I get it (with shipping almost 200+) how long is it going to be worth that, in quality and usage, how long?

That depends on what you intend to use it for. You don't have HDMI out with the Xonar D2. Do you plan to hook your system up to a receiver or use as a HTPC and want to make use of audio over HDMI? With the Xonar HDAV 1.3 there will be HDMI support and some video processing abilities. I have zero interest in that card, personally. I think it's a waste. Nonetheless, do you foresee yourself wanting to make use of audio over HDMI? With the older ATI HD cards (ie HD 2xxx) you can. With the newer ATI HD 48xx cards you have HDMI 1.3 support.

Only you can really answer those questions.

 

[indyjones]

Ahhh sound card debates, Bman I think you need to think clearly what you want this card for and base your purchase around that. I was a creative sound card fan never had a problem personally but then my last card was an audigy 2, so I missed all the of the drivers 'fun' with vista.
Currently for my main machine I am running the off/onboard solution which came with my rampage formula (rotjong i understand you have had some issues here?) its fine for me, but then I am only running 2.1 speakers.
My next sound card will be an ASUS Xonar HDAV 1.3 as that card seems to be setting a new milestone for HD audio, but that will not be for my main machine, but rather for the HTPC.

So finally Bman I think you need to answer these questions for yourself.

What I the no 1 purpose for you soundcard?

Gaming (is true EAX support required)
HD Audio (do you have a surround sound setup for bluray for example)

 

[indyjones]

With the Xonar HDAV 1.3 there will be HDMI support and some video processing abilities. I have zero interest in that card, personally. I think it's a waste.

It will be partially a waste for me, but i believe it will be the only card (to date) to decode and out put (either via hdmi or analogue jacks with the add-in card) true non-downmixed hd audio

 

[rotjong]

It will be partially a waste for me, but i believe it will be the only card (to date) to decode and out put (either via hdmi or analogue jacks with the add-in card) true non-downmixed hd audio

I'll just output the audio via HDMI from my ATI Radeon HD 4870 if I need to. For me the Xonar HDAV 1.3 is an over-priced waste of my time and it takes up 2 slots!

 

[Dark Atheist]

look at vista support, make sure both cards have it, and what you will get in the way of support.

 

[indyjones]

I'll just output the audio via HDMI from my ATI Radeon HD 4870 if I need to. For me it is an over-priced waste of my time and it takes up 2 slots!

Ahh but I don't have an external amp capable of decoding DD and DTS HD audio, or even one that takes audio from hdmi. Hence why I need an all singing all dancing soundcard

Oh Auzentech is making something similar as a add-on card unfortunatly it seems limited to passing audio through via hdmi only where as the asus card can out put it from it's analouge outputs as long as the source is unprotected

 

[rotjong]

Currently for my main machine I am running the off/onboard solution which came with my rampage formula (rotjong i understand you have had some issues here?) its fine for me, but then I am only running 2.1 speakers.

Yeah, I had issues but my problem was tracked down to being an IRQ conflict. It was a conflict between my onboard IDE controller and my NVIDIA 8800 GT video card.

The SupremeFX II onboard sound on the ASUS Rampage just wasn't good enough for me. The difference listening to any music or playing a game like Mass Effect between the onboard audio and an X-Fi card was truly night and day. It had no compatibility problem. The X-Fi is just a far superior card compared to the onboard sound.

For the time being I use 4.1 sound. I need to upgrade my speakers. I had two sets of 5.1 Altec Lansing speakers that had the subwoofer fry I haven't gotten around to replacing them. The second set was a replacement for the first set that died far too quickly and even the 2nd set ridiculously. I didn't abuse them. I'm convinced the problem was that model of speakers because the 4.1 set of speakers I am still using are also Altec Lansing and I've been using them for quite awhile with no problems. I need to get around to buying Medusa 5.1 Home Edition headphones.

Ahh but I don't have an external amp capable of decoding DD and DTS HD audio, or even one that takes audio from hdmi. Hence why I need an all singing all dancing soundcard

Oh Auzentech is making something similar as a add-on card unfortunatly it seems limited to passing audio through via hdmi only where as the asus card can out put it from it's analouge outputs as long as the source is unprotected

Why send the DD or DTS HD audio out? Send out LPCM. Let PowerDVD decode the audio. It will still sound better than the other audio streams according to nearly everyone I've talked to concerning sending audio out to a receiver. The bandwidth limitations are removed compared to SPDIF and other methods of outputting the audio.

As for the amp not accepting HDMI, yeah, that is a problem. I got the ATI 4870 for the video but the audio over HDMI is just a bonus that I hopefully will get around to using at some point.

 

[LordOfLA]

I have the xonar d2 running on vista x64 with 6gb ram. The creative drivers don't work on more than 2gb.

The xonar will last you a long time with the most stunning audio you will ever hear. This card has me turning around to see where a noise is coming from only to realise it's the positional audio. None of the creative cards I had in the past ever made me do that.

I've had it hooked up to logitech z-5500s and it blew me away. I've got sennheiser headphones and it blows me away.

I hooked it up to my new Yamaha DSP-AX620 AV processor and I'd swear I was listening to the original audio source wired into my brain.

The Xonar is audio from heaven. I have yet to hear anything clearer and cleaner in PC audio.

The analogue outputs are stunning. Using digital output kind of defeats the point.

It'll be a purchase where you wonder why you didn't switch from creative sooner.

All my future audio card purchases will be from Asus until I see a reason to do otherwise, right now I don't think you could get a better sounding card from anyone else.

 

[Not Bman]

Main use for the soundcard? Gaming & HD Movies. You said the Xonar does not have HDMI abilities, but does that mean you can't run sound through that card into the receiver or anything else? I assume there is another way, which I don't think I would notice the quality difference.

That whole Creative drivers don't work on more then 2GB worries me. What exactly does that mean, does soundcards need more then that? lol

And do I care for ture EAX support, I don't think I do, but my habits and opinions change over the years. Really as long as gaming and movies sound good to someone who listen's to 128K MP3's and enjoys them, and that I can record sound with the card, and it will last longer then a year I think I will be happy. My system will eventually be running a Satiliite Card through it on a HDTV and on the monitor, will the sound card effect that?

I am not sure if I answered anything or made anything clear lol

 

[rotjong]

The creative drivers don't work on more than 2gb.

That's absolutely wrong. The March driver update fixed the memory problem.

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi 2.15.0006 drivers released on March 14, 2008 fixed the 4 GB issue. These drivers applied to all X-Fi cards at the time except for the low low-end X-Fi XtremeAudio.

My system specs:

Vista Ultimate x64
8 GB Corsair DDR2 RAM

Main use for the soundcard? Gaming & HD Movies. You said the Xonar does not have HDMI abilities, but does that mean you can't run sound through that card into the receiver or anything else? I assume there is another way, which I don't think I would notice the quality difference.

You can output to speakers just fine without HDMI. The thing with audio over HDMI is the quality will be better. You can either output to a receiver and have it decode the audio or you can allow PowerDVD to do the decoding and send LPCM out to the receiver. The amount of bandwidth required by LPCM is too much for SPDIF or other output means.

That whole Creative drivers don't work on more then 2GB worries me. What exactly does that mean, does soundcards need more then that? lol

There were problems at one time when using 4 GB of memory or more. It's no longer an issue because of updated drivers. People that claim there is still a memory problem are wrong. I have 8 GB of RAM in this system and I've had an XtremeAudio, XtremeMusic, and X-Fi Titanium installed with no issues.

And do I care for ture EAX support, I don't think I do, but my habits and opinions change over the years. Really as long as gaming and movies sound good to someone who listen's to 128K MP3's and enjoys them, and that I can record sound with the card, and it will last longer then a year I think I will be happy. My system will eventually be running a Satiliite Card through it on a HDTV and on the monitor, will the sound card effect that?

The difference in sound with EAX is important if you game. Spacial sounds, for instance, where someone is walking up behind you, etc. True EAX and the supposedly emulated EAX from ASUS aren't the same. I'm not saying the ASUS emulation is total garbage but it's just not the real thing.

If you want to watch HD movies and play games then I think the XtremeGamer would be adequate and far cheaper than the Xonar. The Xonar, on the other hand, might simply be better in terms of the audio when it comes to watching the HD movies.

I don't have the best speaker system by any means. I've been putting off getting new speakers but the difference between soundcards can be amazing at times.

What you need to decide is just how important is the sound to you. The X-Fi will offer good sound for movies, music, and real EAX 5 support. The ASUS will offer good audio for movies and games but will be lacking in terms of EAX 5 support. Is that a major issue with you especially because you are paying considerably more money for the Xonar?

I'm not trying to push you in either direction. These are just things to think about before making the final decision.