Choice of 2 soundcards, help please

[belveder]

I am looking to buy a soundcard, have cut the choice down to 2 soundcards.

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium PCIe Fatal1ty Pro Series or Asus Xonar D2X Ultra Fidelity PCI-E.

I have read reviews on both of them and they both sound real good, can't figure out which one to get. I do a lot of movie and audio editing plus gaming so I need an excellent all-rounder that is good with digital speakers.

I use Vista 64.

I'm leaning towards the Creative because I like the I/O drive, but I have heard a lot of bad stuff about Creative since Vista came out.

Any help appreciated

 

[Dark Atheist]

Xonar - would be my choice

 

[belveder]

Thanks, but is there a reason?

 

[Dark Atheist]

creative's track record on supporting vista has been crap to say the least

 

[rotjong]

I have the Titanium Fatal1ty PCI-e card and have had absolutely zero issues under Vista Ultimate SP1 x64. I've had it since June 15th. The Titanium drivers are not the same drivers used by the rest of the X-Fi cards. It has been a great gaming card and works beautifully for music playback and watching HD-DVD & BluRay movies. I'm glad I went with it over another card.

 

[LordOfLA]

Xonar, its an amazing sounding card. If your main focus is gaming though you may want to get the x-fi due to its native eax 5 support. For all other purposes you want the xonar.

 

[LordOfLA]

Oh and you should always use analogue out on a discreet soundcard. If you want to use digital use your onboard optical output.

 

[belveder]

Oh and you should always use analogue out on a discreet soundcard. If you want to use digital use your onboard optical output.

I'm a little confused by that, does that mean that if I am going to use digital don't bother with a sound card?

 

[ray_gillespie]

I have a Creative X-Fi card and I absolutely love it. I've never had a problem with Vista and Creative. There are people who have, for sure, but there are also a lot of people who've never had a problem.

 

[rotjong]

Actually, I realized that I did have one specifc problem with the Titanium Fatal1ty PCI-e card and it was some months back. I tried using the FP mic input and had major difficulties with getting it to work w/o feedback and squealing. I was never able to resolve the problem. I plugged the mic into the rear input on the card, itself, and I've had no issues. I've had zero issues with the FP headphone output.

 

[Luna]

I had issues with Vista and Creative when Vista was first released, but the drivers have received numerous updates since then and now it's rock solid. Running a X-Fi Gamer on Vista x64.

 

[zeke_mo]

Asus Xonar D2X Ultra Fidelity PCI-E.



I personally will never buy another creative card. Drivers are a joke and I have never seen such disrespect for customers

 

[ElementalDragon]

Belveder: not sure what your budget is.... but i'd recommend the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude over both of those. Not exactly a cheap sound card... but surpasses those that you mentioned.

and what he said about using optical audio is pretty much correct. Unless your computer is hooked up to like... a rather high end home theater reciever.... there's a good chance that the audio processing hardware on the sound card you choose is better than what can be produced by the speaker hardware. Kinda like how people say if you use a high end sound card like the Auzentech Prelude and a set of Logitech Z-5500's, using the analog jacks would probably produce better sound quality than what can be produced by the Logitech control panel. Then again... i don't think analog supports some audio formats, such as some of the Dolby Digital formats.

 

[belveder]

Auzentech X-Fi Prelude mm I never thought of that one, will go and check it out now, thanks

 

[ElementalDragon]

yea.... it's nice because it uses Creative's X-Fi chipset, so you get the EAX 5 and X-Fi Crystalizer and all that other stuff the X-Fi chipset provides.... but you also have replacable/upgradable OPAMPS for the front channels, and the benefit of having drivers that, although based on Creative's.... are modified a bit by Auzentech. That is... until they get their own drivers made.... which has been mentioned long ago, but i haven't really checked up on whether that's really moving along nicely or not.

 

[belveder]

According to all the reviews, it doesn't hold up very well

 

[ElementalDragon]

0.o what reviews? and doesn't hold up to what? I have one, and i love it..... and MANY people over at Guru3D have it, and love it as well, even compared to Creative's X-Fi cards, and some even compared to the Xonar. They have a whole thread dedicated to discussing the Prelude over there.

 

[belveder]

While looking into the Auzentech I came across Auzen X-FI Prelude 7.1 is this what you where talking about, sounds real cool except it doesn't have DTS and Dolby Digital Live available yet or has that been fixed?

 

[ElementalDragon]

it's been fixed. here's auzentech's site for the Prelude.

http://www.auzentech.com/site/products/x-fi_prelude.php

 

[belveder]

Thanks, this card sounds good, but I can't find how it stands up against the new Creative Titanium